Reinserting Woman into Contemporary Chinese National Identity: A Comparative Reading of Three "New Immigrant" Plays from 1990s Shanghai

This article investigates major issues related to the configuration of woman in the changing discourse of Chinese national identity under increasing pressure of capitalist globalization through the staging of three "new immigrant" plays by the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center in the 1990s. Through analysis of performance and textual reading, it explores various ways in which gender was reinserted into the public discourse concerning the meaning of China's national identity, especially the employment of the "woman-as-nation" trope and the reconfiguration of femininity. Women involved in the study constructed a transnational Chinese femininity that challenges the masculine nationalist imposition.