Shanghai Spectacular: Visions of the New Urban Order (4/20/2010) – Part I

In this talk, Dr. Wen-hsin Yeh, Professor of History at UC Berkeley and Director of the Institute for East Asian Studies, explores the imagery from early twentieth century Shanghai that enabled a mobile and a “disembedded” consumption of the glamour and abundance of modernity.

Shanghai, from the mid-nineteenth century onward, was a place of migrants from across China and abroad. These individuals transformed the city into a place of glamour with their talent and labor. The lure of “old Shanghai,” to which we now turn with nostalgia, was once the excitement of everything new. The “Nanjing Road Phenomenon” was no mere intensification of traditional commercial activity or promotion of goods, but underscored a shift in the production and consumption of images.