Taking Beijing, the capital city and the cultural center of China as an example, the dissertation analyzes selected contemporary filmic, literary, poetic, and dramatic works to investigate the significance of the metamorphosing spaces in China. Positioning itself in the dialectic of globalization, the central concern of the study is to examine the possibility and capability of cultural products to influence and (re)mold social space and practice in cultural performance. The dissertation is divided into four chapters. Chapter One analyzes four contemporary Chinese films about spatial transformations in Beijing, and argues that the previously drab, politicized, and degendered space of Beijing has become more commercialized, globalized, sexualized, and gendered. Chapter Two examines several poems by the Beijng-born poet - Yan Li, and argues that these poems create a poetic space to distance, critique, and resist the other discursive spaces. Chapter Three analyzes the contested drama of the epic quest for self-identity through critical rereading of literary works by Beijing writers from three generations, and argues that essential to China's explosive urban space is the paradigmatic reconfiguration of self-identity, struggling for discursive and intersubjective legitimacy. Chapter Four examines two plays directed by Meng Jinghui, suggesting that contemporary Chinese drama has broken from the long tradition of realistic drama in China in both content and form.
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