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

In this talk, 博士. 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.

上海, 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. 这 “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.