Shanghai Imagination Of The1990’s:the Middle Class’s Cultural Imagination And Writing

Ever since1980’s, the rapid development of market economy and the dramatic acceleration of urbanization in China grounded urban literature and academic study on it. Lots of literary works and movies describing Shanghai, the mass media and the cultural industry all contributed to form Shanghai imagination in the1990’s, leading to a fashion of the middle class’s cultural imagination and writing of1990’s. Focusing on Shanghai imagination of the1990’s, the thesis explores its characteristics and the middle class’s cultural imagination and writing from the perspective of cultural politics. The introduction of the thesis illuminates the significance, actualities and creative arguments of the topic of this thesis. And the body of the thesis will be divided into three chapters:Chapter I introduces the cultural context, the middle class’s cultural imagination and writing and the relationship between them. In the1990’s, with the urbanization proceeding dramatically, the national authority ideology was replaced by market economy ideology. The flourishing consumerism spurred the birth of the new rich whose literary works, movies, paintings and music were all parts of their cultural imagination. The middle class of the1990’s is a class with the cultural identity. The members formed a political and cultural imaginative community through fictions, newspapers and other forms of media. They tended to spend too much expense on fashion and brands under the influence of consumerism. However, they lost themselves gradually in the overwhelming obsession with material satisfaction. Thus they had to yield to stoicism. The writers in the1990’s are more concerned with the middle class’s cultural writing and imagination, which differs from and thus is more innovative than that of the1920’s.Chapter II expounds the presentation of Shanghai imagination of the1990’s and the middle class’s cultural identity. The forming of class is closely associated with gender and race. Seeking for their cultural identity, this thesis will approach Shanghai imagination of the1990’s from three dimensions:the middle class’s gender, urban and life imaginations.Chapter III discusses fashions of the middle class’s cultural imagination. Taken as an example, literary works writing on Shanghai since1990’s are nostalgic texts recording the glorious past of Shanghai and they become the cultural origin of the imagination. Those middle class writers write vaguely, constructing a dedicate and elegant Shanghai in their works and effacing a ruthless and cold-blood Shanghai. They highlight the’’Otherness" of their cultural imagination from that of the Western bourgeoisie.In the part of Conclusion, the thesis demonstrates the middle class’s legitimacy narration and their value pursuit. Shanghai imagination of the1990’s is confirmed to comply with the middle class’s aesthetic value. In the course of discussing their historic consciousness, the middle class find a legitimate way to narrate and express their value pursuit. In this way. not only the middle class’collective identity anxiety is eased but also their life style and culture attract other classes’attention. The deep cultural contradictions hidden behind the modern society is thus exposed.