The theatrics of revolution: Tian Han (1898--1968) and the cultural politics of performance in modern China

The intimate cultural connections between Japanese modernity and Chinese nationalism and between the Republican (1912-1949) and the Communist eras (1949- ) in modern China have long been relegated to historical obscurity because of an over-politicized view of the relationship between the two countries and the two parties both inside and outside China. This dissertation aims to debunk these artificial dichotomies by tracing what I call the "theatrics of revolution" from Taisho Tokyo, Republican Shanghai, and the Wartime Hinterland, to Communist Beijing, using Tian Han (1898-1968), one of the most versatile yet least studied cultural figures of twentieth-century China, as a guide.; There are two layers of meaning in what I call the "theatrics of revolution." As an active "director" and "actor" in modern China's theatrical and political transformations, Tian Han revolutionized modern Chinese theatrical performance on stage at the same time as he embodied the theatricality of modern Chinese revolution in real life. Tian Han can guide us to the larger contexts of the performative nature of modern Chinese revolutionary history to explore both how revolution was dramatized on stage and performed in everyday life.; "The theatrics of revolution" asks that we examine the intricacies of twentieth-century Chinese cultural politics not according to the neatly charted national and ideological boundaries familiar to us today, but through the medium of the powerful transgressions across gender, genre, spatial, and ideological divides embodied by Tian Han. "The theatrics of revolution" refers thus to the transgressive energy circulating across the dual arenas of performance and revolution. I argue that it is the continuous interplay between these, and the hybrid cultural products arising out of this intense interaction that best capture the historicity and contemporary manifestations of twentieth-century Chinese cultural politics.