Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930-1945

Overview

In the midst of China's wild rush to modernize, a surprising note of reality arises: Shanghai, it seems, was once modern indeed, a pulsing center of commerce and art in the heart of the twentieth century. This book immerses us in the golden age of Shanghai urban culture, a modernity at once intrinsically Chinese and profoundly anomalous, blending new and indigenous ideas with those flooding into this "treaty port" from the Western world.

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Overview

In the midst of China's wild rush to modernize, a surprising note of reality arises: Shanghai, it seems, was once modern indeed, a pulsing center of commerce and art in the heart of the twentieth century. This book immerses us in the golden age of Shanghai urban culture, a modernity at once intrinsically Chinese and profoundly anomalous, blending new and indigenous ideas with those flooding into this "treaty port" from the Western world.

A preeminent specialist in Chinese studies, Leo Ou-fan Lee gives us a rare wide-angle view of Shanghai culture in the making. He shows us the architecture and urban spaces in which the new commercial culture flourished, then guides us through the publishing and filmmaking industries that nurtured a whole generation of artists and established a bold new style in urban life known as modeng. In the work of six writers of the time, particularly Shi Zhecun, Mu Shiying, and Eileen Chang, Lee discloses the reflection of Shanghai's urban landscape—foreign and familiar, oppressive and seductive, traditional and innovative. This work acquires a broader historical and cosmopolitan context with a look at the cultural links between Shanghai and Hong Kong, a virtual genealogy of Chinese modernity from the 1930s to the present day.

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Editorial Reviews

Library Journal
Lee is a distinguished professor of Chinese literature at Harvard University who has had a long association with the founders of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Being thus well versed in both Chinese and Western literature allows him to define Chinese modernity in Shanghai during the foreign occupation, when "culture" was at its height. Lee points out that China's adoption of Quaker Oats and cigarettes as nationalistic commodities was less important than the unprecedented use of the female body to advertise these products. Lee describes the surging modern atmosphere by examining the proliferation of cinemas, coffeehouses, theaters, dance halls, parks, and race courses. He also details the literary contributions of six writers to describe the popular demand for modern literature. Like Geremie R. Barm 's In the Red (LJ 4/1/99), this book examines many different types of media in China, although Barm 's focus is contemporary. Recommended particularly for libraries with collections in modern literature and Chinese studies.--Peggy Spitzer Christoff, Oak Park, IL Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Left History
Lee is at his strongest in discussing the inter-textuality of the various works he discusses in this section of the book, showing their relationship to both the European and Chinese literary traditions…Lee's focus on republican-era Shanghai is a reminder of the renewed capacities of China's largest city as a producer of the discourse of modernity in the post-Mao era.
— Antonia Finnane
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780674805507
  • Publisher: Harvard University Press
  • Publication date: 9/28/1999
  • Series: Interpretations of Asia
  • Pages: 436
  • Product dimensions: 6.42 (w) x 9.52 (h) x 1.36 (d)

Meet the Author

Leo Ou-fan Lee is Professor Emeritus of Chinese Literature at Harvard University and Professor of Humanities at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

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Table of Contents

Preface
I The Background of Urban Culture
1 Remapping Shanghai 3
2 The Construction of Modernity in Print Culture 43
3 The Urban Milieu of Shanghai Cinema 82
4 Textual Transactions: Discovering Literary Modernism through Books and Journals 120
II The Modern Literary Imagination: Writers and Texts
5 The Erotic, the Fantastic, and the Uncanny: Shi Zhecun's Experimental Stories 153
6 Face, Body, and the City: The Fiction of Liu Na'ou and Mu Shiying 190
7 Decadent and Dandy: Shao Xunmei and Ye Lingfeng 232
8 Eileen Chang: Romances in a Fallen City 267
III Reflections
9 Shanghai Cosmopolitanism 307
10 Epilogue: A Tale of Two Cities 324
Notes 343
Glossary 387
Index 399
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