Assignment

Length: 3 pages (750 words) minimum.

Standard essay form, with a meaningful title (not "Paper #1"), a clear, well-supported argument and a conclusion. Please double-space. The course materials for this question include the articles by Perdue and Hershatter on iLearn, "Flowers of Shanghai," "Confidence in the Game," Midnight, "The Goddess," "Shanghai's Lost Art Deco City," "Lilong Preservation".

Choose ONE of the following questions.

1. Because Shanghai was the most modern city in China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Shanghai women were at the cutting edge of China's modernity. Please comment, using at least three specific examples of image and text from the course materials, on how depictions of Shanghai courtesans, Shanghai prostitutes, Shanghai movie actresses, and ordinary Shanghai women reflect the development of modernity in China.

2. As a semi-colonial city, Shanghai had many spaces of hybrid modernity, including the foreign banks and shipping companies on the Bund, the western-style residential architecture of the International Settlement and French Concession, the department stores of Nanjing Road, the public buildings of the Greater Shanghai Project, and even the lilong-style housing of ordinary people. How did these spaces and buildings shape Shanghai people's modern lifestyle in the 1920s and 1930s? Give at least three examples from the course materials, including both visual and textual materials.