Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 282-294). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 37-40).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1965. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 227-234).

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Glasgow, 2002. / Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, University of Glasgow, 2002. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 297-306). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 37-40). Also available in print.

The participatory cyberspace, epitomized by the concept of Web 2.0, has become a key venue of Chinese stardom in the post-cinema era.Web 2.0 invites its users to contribute to the content through an architecture of participation. Fans can search, poach, edit, and post filmic and publicity materials about stars, formulating seamless, collaborative reworkings of the star image and generating a new star-fan dynamic. At the crossroads of participatory cyberspace and cinema, transnational Chinese movie stars call our attention to the critical concern of Chineseness. In recent years, a number of Chinese movie stars have attained prominent presence in the global cinematic arena. These acting talents, who are either identified as martial arts performers or known for their performances in martial arts films, won global acclaim as a result of the worldwide reception and esteem for Hong Kong action films and Fifth Generation directors’ films from mainland China. As these stars begin to engineer personae stretching beyond their ethnic identities for the global setting, their stardom engenders discourses of ethnicity and cosmopolitanism.What does it mean to call these stars “Chinese” in the global cyber setting? How do their fans interact to reshape their star personae on the Web? How can one approach and understand “Chineseness” within cyber fan discourse? All these questions point to a central problem of how to conceptualize Chineseness in participatory cyberspace. My agenda in this study is to investigate Chinese movie stardom as a web-based phenomenon by establishing a new theoretical framework for considering Chineseness in participatory cyberspace. I have created a set of four analytical matrixes, each examining a particular Chinese star through a specific fan-based practice on a specific participatory site: vidding Donnie Yen and critiquing Zhang Ziyi on YouTube; photo-sharing about Jackie Chan on Flickr; “friending” Jet Li on Facebook; and discussing Takeshi Kaneshiro on fan forums. Through close investigation of these five Chinese stars, I demonstrate that the cyber setting enables collaborative fan reworkings of star texts and multiple directionality of approaching Chineseness. Cyber fans produce intertextual, multi-faceted star personae, different from traditional film personae whose meanings are anchored in a rigid established representational framework. Through the relentless scrutiny, quotation, manipulation self-affiliation by fans enabled by cyber technology, Chineseness becomes an utterly illusive and indefinable entity, a new form of signification whose meaning is always changing. This unstable, hybrid Chineseness challenges the notion of a star’s given ethnicity, redefining the archetypal martial arts body in unpredictable, manifold and provocative terms for the cyber era. With the aim of advancing the critical theorization of Chineseness, this study unfolds and analyzes the dynamics of the vital relationship between Chinese stardom, web technologies, and fan discourse. It also serves as a timely response to the challenges posed by cyber culture for the disciplines of cinema and cultural studies, in light of the proliferating yet inadequate current efforts in this field. / published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-113).

published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the members of the woman’s suffrage movement in the United States and Britain looked to soften their hard masculine image given to them by the press and to increase participation in the cause. They found that by including theatrical performances and benefits at meetings, and hosting tea socials afterwards, they could motivate many women to join without alienating or threatening men. This study looks at how tea socials and theatrical performances were used subversively to recruit new members, to debate ideas, and to disseminate information about the cause. Playwrights wrote plays that examined the questions and issues surrounding this movement, and upstart, female-operated theatre groups and social clubs presented these plays to the public, allowing the debate to reach a wider audience. Actresses themselves joined clubs to increase their presence in society, to help out other actresses, and to find political agency.