Visualizing China, 1845-1965—Moving and Still Images in Historical Narratives

How does China project its image in the world? Why and how has the world come to form certain impressions of the Chinese and their way of life? These are issues that preoccupy Chinese citizens in the globalizing 21st century as they travel overseas, riding on the capacity of the country s newly acquired economic power. In "Visualizing China," the authors join forces to launch a broader inquiry aimed at a synergistic understanding of the larger story of visuality in modern China. The essays cluster around several nodal points including photographs, advertising, posters and movies, spanning from the 1840s to the 1960s, and devote special attention to modern Chinese practices in the visualization of things Chinese.

Christian Henriot, Ph.D. (1983) is Professor of Chinese history at University of Lyon and currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Institut Universitaire de France. He is the author and editor of several books, including Prostitution and Sexuality in Shanghai, 1849-1949 (Cambridge UP, 2001) and In the Shadow of the Rising Sun (Cambridge UP, 2004). His latest project is an online research and resource platform on Shanghai history (http://virtualshanghai.net).Wen-hsin Yeh, Ph.D. (1984) is Richard H. & Laurie C. Morrison Chair Professor in History and Walter & Elise Haas Chair Professor in Asian Studies & Director, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California at Berkeley. She is the author of Shanghai Splendor (University of California Press, 2007), and over a dozen other books and edited volumes. Her current project is an intellectual history of modern China that takes into account issues of space, gender, ethnicity.