The topic for this semester is about urban modernity, gender, and sexuality. Modernity has been regarded as a kind of overwhelming force that threatens to "melt" all that is solid: body, space, time, beliefs, and more generally, our conception of the world. It has led to the celebration of a plethora of "modern" values, such as progress, rationality, science, linear temporality, etc., which in turn was criticized or subverted by a bunch of Modernist writers. In this semester we're going to read two fictions written in different cultural contexts to probe into the issue of urban modernity, gender, and sexuality. These two novels are Crystal Boys by Pai Hsien-yung, and Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, and we will read these two novels along with critical theories on related issues.