The Politics of the Postmodernist Theatre in China
The Politics of the Postmodernist Theatre in China

Summary/Abstract: Jürgen Habermas, the German historian-sociologist, proposes to study the rise of the modern bourgeois society in relation to the emergence of the public sphere, by which he means “first of all a domain of our social life in which such a thing as public opinion can be formed. Access to the public sphere is open in principle to all citizens. ... Citizens act as a public when they deal with matters of general interest without being subject to coercion; thus with the guarantee that they may assemble and unite freely, and express and publicize their opinions freely” (Habermas 1991: 398). The relevance of Habermas’s idea of the public sphere to the study of contemporary Chinese cultural forms lies in its analysis of the opposition between the authority of the state and the autonomy of society, in which the public sphere serves as the basis of political institutions legitimized from below by informed discussion and reasoned argument. In other words, the public sphere is seen as the social foundation of the modern Western style of democracy and the process of public opinion making, which is often referred to by Habermas as the bourgeois public sphere. The idea of the public sphere in relation to the rise of oppositional discourse and ideology is particularly useful in the study of changes in the contemporary Chinese culture, as Julia Kristeva has convincingly argued that the change in an art form or style is often a result of the change in ideology (Kristeva 1984: 165). Habermas’s idea of the public sphere is useful in the study of the public opinion, particularly in relation to the structural transformation of society and cultural change. It is beyond doubt that contemporary Chinese culture constitutes an institution of public sphere Habermas has described, in which there is the public space for the use of dramatic situations to satirize current political and social events in opposition to the authority of the state. This tradition of culture, especially the theatre, as an institution of public sphere has been extensively used as a revolutionary tactic in various periods of modern Chinese history, first by the late Qing intellectuals against the Manchu regime, then by the Nationalists against the warlords, and later by the Marxists against the Nationalists. The theatre has actually become the contested ground for opposing ideologies in traditional as well as modern China.[...]

• Details
• Contents