Abstract: During her residence in Shanghai between 1935 and 1939, American writer Emily Hahn wrote a series of short stories about China for the New Yorker. The production and circulation of these stories relate Hahn to both the bilingual culture in Shanghai and American middlebrow literature. This essay examines how she imagines a cosmopolitan expatriate identity in relation to these two culture spheres. Through first-person narrative, Hahn's stories depict a Chinese, Mr. Pan Heh-Ven, and his connection to a variety of characters in Shanghai. This interconnection represents the multi-layered power relations in semi-colonial Shanghai. The narrator expresses her attitude towards the inequalities inherent in these power structures by her different modes of interaction with Mr. Pan. As a result, these short stories voice a gendered perspective of critical cosmopolitanism that is anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, and against patriarchal family structure.

Key words: Emily Hahn, critical cosmopolitanism, expatriate identity, semi-coloniality, female first-person narration, empathy

摘要： 美国作家项美丽旅居上海期间(1935-1939)为《纽约客》杂志创作了一系列短篇中国故事。这些文本的生产和流通连接了上海本地双语文化与美国女性通俗文学两个文化场域。本文在项美丽与上述两种文化场域的关联当中,考察其短篇如何想象女性侨民的文化身份及其呈现出怎样的世界主义特征:第一人称叙述者通过描述潘海文与不同人物之间的关联方式,再现了上海半殖民语境多重交叠的权力关系。项美丽以叙述者对潘海文的共情或是质疑,来表达自身对不同权力结构的认知,并在具体的种族、民族或性别等多维度的社会关系当中想象美国女性侨民的主体身份。

关键词: 项美丽, 批判性世界主义, 侨民身份, 半殖民性, 女性叙事, 共情