Rethinking Theatrical Images of the New Woman in China's Republian Era

In her article "Rethinking Theatrical Images of the New Woman in China's Republican Era" Li Guo analyses the multivalent representations of the New Woman and posits that they encompass a broad array of blended feminine identities following the introduction of Western literary and cultural trends into Chinese culture. The tensions between ideological discourses about nation, gender, and politics as revealed in the plays of the republican period reveal the many underlying cultural paradigms and the processes in which dramatists Sinicized foreign models of the New Woman to appeal to their domestic audiences. Guo explores how the playwrights' gendered viewpoints contribute to divergent representation of the New Woman as a feminine subject and reconfigure Western theatrical traditions to express new ideals of women's sexual, social, and political identities. Li Guo, "Rethinking Theatrical Images of the New Woman in China's Republican Era" page 2 of 9 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 15.2 (2013): Thematic Issue Asian Culture(s) and Globalization. Ed. I-Chun Wang and Li Guo