On The Relationship Between The Female Body And The Republic Of China Shanghai "modern" Cultural Image

As a kind of advertising picture, calendar posters arose at Shanghai in the period of the Republic of China. It has not only become a glamour collection but also a symbol of local culture as a result of many scholars'concern. Calendar posters with modern women's image reflected the reformation of Chinese women's body. From this viewpoint, this article emphasizes mainly on women's self-awareness and self-identity hidden behind the images and illustrates how "modern" became a keyword of Shanghai culture in this process. This thesis tries to link the theory of image of urban culture and apply methods of anthropology and sociology in order to analyze the legitimacy of modern women's body as a kind of image of Shanghai culture.Accompanied by social transformation, in combined influence of nation-state government, intellectuals, the mass population and commercial capitalism which brought consumer culture, Shanghai women' s self-conscious began to wake up and cause an upheaval about body image. The first part of this thesis points out the change phenomenon of women' s body by contrasting the body image of modern women with ancient traditional women and educes the relationship of women's body image and self-conscious. The second part illustrates two different meanings of "modern" in Shanghai:"modern spirit" and "fashion appearance" which implicit in two different modern women (schoolgirl and swell woman) who both experienced the process of identification. By analyzing the typical characteristic:anti-foot-binding, hair cutting and high-heeled shoes, this part also reveals how the power of two different discourses caused the forming of two kinds of modern women's body which let "modern" become an ideal standards of women in the period of Republic of China and an symbol of Shanghai culture. In this logic, the third part states the construction of "modern" cultural image formed when calendar posters with modern women's image became a part of daily life's space, then points out the cognition about modern women and Shanghai of people in other areas. Furthermore, the last part demonstrates as a vehicle of collective memory in contemporary Shanghai, calendar posters has become a new urban culture symbol which has participated in the construction of city culture when Shanghai is in the way of pursuing the identity as the sixth fashion capital in the world.