This sounds like it might be interesting – this Tuesday in Shanghai if you happen to be there and organised by the Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai
Tuesday 26th October, 2010 at 7:00 p.m.
Mesa-Manifesto 748 Julu Road, Shanghai
Samuel Y. Liang
Mapping Modernity in Shanghai: Space, Gender, and Visual Culture in the Sojourners’ City, 1853-98
Samuel Liang’s book argues that modernity first arrived in late nineteenth-century Shanghai via a new spatial configuration. This city’s colonial capitalist development ruptured the traditional configuration of self-contained households, towns, and natural landscapes in a continuous spread, producing a new set of fragmented as well as fluid spaces. In this process, Chinese sojourners actively appropriated new concepts and technology rather than passively responding to Western influences. Liang maps the spatial and material existence of these transient people and reconstructs a cultural geography that spreads from the interior to the neighborhood and public spaces. The author discusses: the courtesan house as a surrogate home and analyzes its business, gender, and material configurations; examines a new type of residential neighborhood and shows how its innovative spatial arrangements transformed the traditional social order and hierarchy; surveys a range of public spaces and highlights the mythic perceptions of industrial marvels, the adaptations of colonial spatial types, the emergence of an urban public, and the spatial fluidity between elites and masses.
Through reading contemporaneous literary and visual sources, the book charts a hybrid modern development that stands in contrast to the positivist conception of modern progress. As such it will be a provocative read for scholars of Chinese cultural and architectural history.
Samuel Y. Liang was born in Anhui and was educated in Anhui, Shanghai, and New York, where he received a PhD in art history in 2006. For the last two decades, He has taught architectural history and Chinese art and culture in China, the United States, and Great Britain, most recently as a lecturer in Chinese cultural studies at the University of Manchester. In an addition to his first book titled Mapping Modernity in China (Routledge, 2010), he published dozens of articles (in Chinese and English) on modern architecture and Chinese culture in professional and academic journals.
Entrance: RMB 30 (RAS members) and RMB 80 (non-members) those unable to make the donation but wishing to attend may contact us for exemption, prior to the RAS Studio. Membership applications and membership renewals will be available at this event.
Referring to yesterday’s post on the restoration of the old St. Ignatius School I noted next to the school a sort of mock stained glass logo (below) saying simply Xujiahui Origin. I couldn’t work out what this was or what it really related to – some sort of private initiative or a government attempt to brand Xujiahui? I’ve got no idea, so if anyone does have an idea do let me know.
I’ve posted a bunch of times before on the delights of various tram systems in China – those that existed prior to 1949 and those that still exist (my favourite being Dalian’s system). I always get a lot of responses on anything tramophile so here, just because I recently got to go on one for the first time, is a sleek beauty of a gorgeous San Francisco tram which is a real looker!!
Looking for a hot venue to hang out in tonight? Why not DD’s on the Avenue Joffre where Tino and his Orchestra were in residence in 1941 up at 815 Avenue Joffre (Huai Hai Road). I had a dig around but couldn’t find any trace of Tino or his boys – unless anyone knows different?
In Peking this Friday the Penguin Classics lunch series at the Bookworm continues with Jancie YK Lee (who wrote the wonderful Piano Teacher – a book overlooked by blokes stupidly!) on Emmaby Jane Austen.
I noted the redevelopment of the lovely old building that was formerly St Ignatius School out along Hungjao Road (now Hongqiao Road) by Siccawei (Xujiahui). However, it wasn’t clear when I was last there in May to what purpose the building was to be put when completed. I, rather snidely, suggested another mass of luxury brands. But it appears it will be used as a school. Nearby in a new building is Xuhui School and now a sign has appeared near the gates of the old St Ignatius rather pompously announcing that it will be Le Lycee Xuhui, don’t ya know. Anyway better education of some sort than more D&G.
If you’re in Shanghai this Friday this should be a good lunch at M on the Bund.
Friday, October 22, 12pm
RMB 188, includes a three-course lunch with coffee or tea
Reservations: 6350 9988
Join M on the Bund and Penguin for their second Penguin Classics Lunch, as former South China Morning Post editor Jonathan Fenby discusses his favourite Penguin classic, The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth.
Jonathan Fenby, CBE, has been the editor of the Observer and the South China Morning Post and has held positions
at the Guardian, the Independent, the Economist and Reuters. His books include Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the China He Lost, Dealing with the Dragon: A Year in the New Hong Kong and The Penguin History of Modern China. He is on the board of the European Journalism Centre and is a research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at London University. Fenby is currently editor in chief of the information website, Trusted Sources.
His favourite Penguin Classic is The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth.
The Radetzy March: Strauss’s Radetzy March, signature tune of one of Europe’s most powerful regimes, presides over Joseph Roth’s account of three generations of the Trotta family in the years preceding the Austro-Hungarian collapse in 1918. Grandfather, son and grandson are equally dependent on the empire: the first for his enoblement; the second for the civil virtues that make him a meticulous servant of an administration whose failure he can neither comprehend nor survive; the third for the family standards of conduct which he cannot attain but against which he is too enfeebled to rebel.
Now until recently Shanghai used to still have a Yellow Pages but I haven’t seen one in several years. Perhaps now all that stuff that used to be in the Yellow Pages is on the interweb and nobody has cupboards of phone books anymore. That would be a shame if they have died out…what will strongmen at fairs now tear up?
Back in 1941 the Shanghai Yellow Pages was an indispensable publication that also pushed the joys of consumption and used rather classy advertising. Using the Yellow Pages and letting your fingers do the walking (as their slogan used to say) certainly put a feather in your cap – geddit!
Samuel Liang’s book argues that modernity first arrived in late nineteenth-century Shanghai via a new spatial configuration. This city’s colonial capitalist development ruptured the traditional configuration of self-contained households, towns, and natural landscapes in a continuous spread, producing a new set of fragmented as well as fluid spaces. In this process, Chinese sojourners actively appropriated new concepts and technology rather than passively responding to Western influences. Liang maps the spatial and material existence of these transient people and reconstructs a cultural geography that spreads from the interior to the neighborhood and public spaces. The author discusses: the courtesan house as a surrogate home and analyzes its business, gender, and material configurations; examines a new type of residential neighborhood and shows how its innovative spatial arrangements transformed the traditional social order and hierarchy; surveys a range of public spaces and highlights the mythic perceptions of industrial marvels, the adaptations of colonial spatial types, the emergence of an urban public, and the spatial fluidity between elites and masses.
