A Good Chinese Story
This website was created for CHI-195: A (Good) Chinese Story in Spring 2025. The course explores the ecosystem and content around webnovels in China and how they’ve been received both domestically and abroad. Through it, we explore the way in which webfiction is created and common genres. Some of the topics covered were Danmei, Nuzun, and Fan Fiction. Through our study, we achieved the following goals:
- Develop an in-depth understanding of its principal genres and storytelling techniques;
- Cultivate analytical tools to assess how state regulation, market dynamics, and community practices shape authorship and readership;
- Conduct original research on the transnational circulation and cultural exchange of these serialized narratives.
This website is the culmination of the class, where we thoroughly explore a topic of our choosing. As the works of MXTX have been explored throughout the course, we use this website to discuss the major works and provide critical analysis of her novels.
Who We Are
Anna
Hello everyone! I am a fourth-year college student majoring in Chinese and History. I first became interested in Chinese webfiction in high school, and have been completely hooked ever since. I’ve really appreciated the opportunity to discuss some of my favorite stories in class, and meet others with similar interest in webfiction.
Shabab
Hello everyone, I am a third-year college student pursuring an independent major in Mathematical Physics and Sonic Materiality with a concentration in Digital Studies. I have a deep interest in Danmei web-literature and culture, which began with my friend introducing me to Mo Dao Zu Shi.
Zoe
Hi everyone! I am a third-year college student majoring in Chinese and Anthropology, with an interest in cross-cultural interaction. I have been an avid fandom and web-fiction reader, and I took this class both to fulfill my major requirements, and also because I thought it would be fun to learn more about one of my hobbies. The recent growth in the popularity of Chinese web-fiction and the rapidly expanding study of online culture is one of my greatest interests.
Amy
Hi, I’m currently an undeclared first-year student. I started to read web fiction and decided to take the class because of my high school best friend, who’s a super fan of Danmei novels. Through this class, I learned a lot and got a precious chance to reflect on the media and the experience with my own culture 😀
Simon
Hi all, I’m a fourth-year Mathematics and Economics major with a concentration in Statistics at Grinnell College. I mainly took this class because my adviser suggested I should take more than 1 humanities class during my time at Grinnell. I had never read a webnovel before this class. This has been an interesting topic, and extremely different than my usual work involving quantitative analysis or proofs.