Lisa Rofel is an American anthropologist, specialising in feminist anthropology and gender studies.
[3] Desiring China "examines the ways in which analyses of public culture in China offer new ways to read desire",[4] and was described by Patti Duncan in the NWSA Journal as "an exciting and important new work that pushes the boundaries of ethnography".
[4] Yan Hairong, writing in The Journal of Asian Studies, endorsed Rofel's thesis as "an innovative ethnographic strategy", but commented that desire could be linked not only to culture, but also to political and economic interests.
[6] Other Modernities studies three generations of female silk workers in a factory in Hangzhou, comparing the social attitudes of each generation - those who entered work during the Chinese Communist Revolution, those who grew up during the Cultural Revolution, and those who grew up during the reign of Deng Xiaoping.
[3] Emily Chao, reviewing the book for Anthropological Quarterly, described it as "a theoretically sophisticated yet broadly accessible account which combines an analysis of narrative based on cultural and historical specificities, and on the politics of representation, with a reflexive interrogation of western representations of Chinese women and China; beginning with views formerly held by Rofel herself".