Feminism in Limelight: Constructing Aesthetic Public Sphere under Authoritarian Censorship

• In Event: State Interventions and Cultural Production/Resistance

Abstract

This paper examines how an aesthetic public sphere is constructed as a form of civil engagement and public criticism under conditions of state censorship such as that in contemporary China. Although China’s commercial theatre market has expanded dramatically, all performances operate under dense party-state regulation, including prior script approval and ongoing surveillance. In a broader political context marked by the repression of feminist activism, conventional forms of public dissent remain sharply constrained.
Against this backdrop, the independent theatre company The Nine’s play When We Two Parted (2020) offers a revealing case. The play recounts the lives of two pioneering women physicists modeled on Chien-Shiung Wu and Jinghui Gu, foregrounding structural gender discrimination within scientific institutions. Despite its feminist themes, the play has achieved official recognition and exemption from routine pre-examination, with state discourse framing it as nationalist commemoration rather than gender critique.
Drawing on ethnographic observation and social media analysis, this study shows that women audiences interpret the play differently. Through repeated attendance, coordinated wearing of cheongsams, collective crying during key scenes, and extended online discussion, spectators transform theatre-going into ritualistic, embodied practice. These patterned behaviors construct an aesthetic public sphere in which women collectively recognize and articulate structural gender injustice in coded yet meaningful ways.
Engaging Schechner’s concept of restored behavior, Taylor’s notion of repertoire, and Alexander’s theory of cultural performance, the paper argues that ritualistic spectatorship enables civil engagements within authoritarian constraints. Rather than openly confronting the state, audiences enact public criticism through culturally sanctioned aesthetic participation. The case demonstrates how, under censorship, dissidence relocates into affective and symbolic forms, revealing the aesthetic public sphere as a fragile but consequential site of civic life.

Authors

• Yuxin Guo, University of California San Diego

• Jane Jia-Yin Wang, University at Albany, SUNY