Media and Memory in New Shanghai ― Western Performances of Futures Past

Thriving on its long-term collective memory of possessing futurity, the mega city of Shanghai is once more jockeying for the position as Asia's foremost modern place. An essential part of the regeneration of contemporary Shanghai has been the return of both foreign direct investment and Westerners since the 1990s. Contributing to current debates about the globality and mediatisation of memories, Lagerkvist critically interrogates Shanghai's spectacular regeneration into an emergent world centre from the vantage point of Western elites (tourists, expatriates and travel bloggers), analysing how they consume the city's regenerative nostalgia by affectively projecting mediated futures past. These memory practices are essential for the city and exemplify how the authoritarian party-state and the municipal government are currently 'theming' New Shanghai by situating memories of globalisation past and visions for globalisation future in a coherent narrative and sensory-emotive realm of experience.

Amanda Lagerkvist is Associate Professor in Media and Communication Studies at Sodertorn University, Stockholm, Sweden. She is the co-editor of Strange Spaces: Explorations into Mediated Obscurity (with A. Jansson, 2009) and the author of numerous articles on media space, mobilities and memory. She is currently working on a project on the televisual memory of 9/11 in Sweden, and on the existential dimensions of the commemoration of mediated trauma.