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This chapter analyzes Ken Liu’s “Good Hunting” (2012) as a postcolonial reinterpretation of Chinese gender archetypes amid colonial and technological upheavals. Set in a steampunk reimagining of nineteenth-century British Hong Kong, the story follows Liang, a demon hunter turned engineer, and Yan, a huli jing (fox spirit), whose evolving identities—fox, woman, commodified cyborg, and, ultimately, a technologically reconfigured fox—serve as critiques of colonial subjugation and industrialization. Drawing on postcolonial theory and feminist science and technology studies, this chapter explores the intersections of body politics, power dynamics, and identity transformation. Yan’s metamorphosis unfolds along a progressive trajectory of dispossession and reconfiguration: from mystical fox to powerless woman, commodified cyborg, and ultimately a technologically enhanced agent of resistance. This study examines how each phase of this transformation reflects the entanglement of colonial violence, patriarchal oppression, and technological intervention, ultimately questioning whether technology can serve as a means of emancipation or if it merely remains an instrument of domination.

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Fox, Woman, and Cyborg: Gendered Transformations and Colonial Power in Ken Liu’s “Good Hunting”

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年

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  • Jinhui Wu

摘要

This chapter analyzes Ken Liu’s “Good Hunting” (2012) as a postcolonial reinterpretation of Chinese gender archetypes amid colonial and technological upheavals. Set in a steampunk reimagining of nineteenth-century British Hong Kong, the story follows Liang, a demon hunter turned engineer, and Yan, a huli jing (fox spirit), whose evolving identities—fox, woman, commodified cyborg, and, ultimately, a technologically reconfigured fox—serve as critiques of colonial subjugation and industrialization. Drawing on postcolonial theory and feminist science and technology studies, this chapter explores the intersections of body politics, power dynamics, and identity transformation. Yan’s metamorphosis unfolds along a progressive trajectory of dispossession and reconfiguration: from mystical fox to powerless woman, commodified cyborg, and ultimately a technologically enhanced agent of resistance. This study examines how each phase of this transformation reflects the entanglement of colonial violence, patriarchal oppression, and technological intervention, ultimately questioning whether technology can serve as a means of emancipation or if it merely remains an instrument of domination.