Shadow Modernism

Photography, Writing, and Space in Shanghai, 1925-1937

William Schaefer

$232.80

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Duke University Press
29 September 2017

Photographs: collections; Photographic equipment & techniques; Places in old photographs

"During the early twentieth century, Shanghai was the center of China's new media culture. Described by the modernist writer Mu Shiying as ""transplanted from Europe"" and ""paved with shadows,"" for many of its residents Shanghai was a city without a past paradoxically haunted by the absent past's traces. In Shadow Modernism William Schaefer traces how photographic practices in Shanghai provided a forum within which to debate culture, ethnicity, history, and the very nature of images. The central modernist form in China, photography was neither understood nor practiced as primarily a medium for realist representation; rather, photo layouts, shadow photography, and photomontage rearranged and recomposed time and space, cutting apart and stitching places, people, and periods together in novel and surreal ways. Analyzing unknown and overlooked photographs, photomontages, cartoons, paintings, and experimental fiction and poetry, Schaefer shows how artists and writers used such fragmentation and juxtaposition to make visible the shadows of modernity in Shanghai: the violence, the past, the ethnic and cultural multiplicity excluded and repressed by the prevailing cultural politics of the era and yet hidden in plain sight."

By: William Schaefer
Imprint: Duke University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 635g
ISBN: 9780822368939
ISBN 10: 0822368935
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 29 September 2017
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Part I. Modernism and Photography's Places 1. Picturing Photography, Abstracting Pictures 25 2. False Portals 61 Part II. Landscapes of Images 3. Projected Pasts 113 4. Montage Landscapes 145 5. Shanghai Savage 180 Notes 221 Bibliography 263 Index 279

William Schaefer teaches Chinese in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Durham University.

Reviews for Shadow Modernism: Photography, Writing, and Space in Shanghai, 1925-1937

In his rigorous, close, and imaginative attention to the materiality of these photographic and literary texts, William Schaefer allows us to see a Shanghai we've never seen before. In other words, Shadow Modernism is charged with the shock of the new. Fiercely smart, uncompromising, and methodologically fresh, it will make a lasting impact on our understanding of modernist visual and literary culture in Shanghai. -- Andrew F. Jones, author of * Developmental Fairy Tales: Evolutionary Thinking and Modern Chinese Culture * In this extraordinary book, William Schaefer shows how major thinkers in China, England, France, Germany, and Japan all grappled with similar problems while borrowing from, or competing with, one another. What emerges is a more dynamic and a more realistic sense of a modern cultural discourse coproduced by photographers, artists, writers, and intellectuals operating within a competitive global environment yet intent on solving many of the same, shared, human problems. -- Martin J. Powers, Sally Michelson Davidson Professor of Chinese Arts and Cultures at the University of Michigan