Miao Yu

Imagining and Inventing Shanghai"": the Courtesan Illustrations, the City, and Earlymodern Identity Miao Yu

As early as the 1850s, the advent of Western printingtechnology and the growth of a local leisure marketgave rise to a commercial print industry in Shanghai. An interesting phenomenon was that, the Shanghaicourtesan depicted in urban settings made up one ofthe core components of the representations ofShanghai in the entertainment press. This bookprovides an in-depth analysis on the representationalmodes and strategies of the Shanghai courtesanillustrations in the 19th-century entertainmentpress. Reading courtesan images from a wide range ofprinted artifacts, the author analyzes an urbaniconography" based on the intertwined relationshipbetween the urban context and the courtesan as an"urban beauty." By reading the courtesan images inparallel to the emerging urban metaphors of Shanghaiin the late 19th century the study sheds new lighton how the courtesan's iconic images served as anambivalent site where a variety of publicsensibilities and opinions about the emergingmetropolis were generated mediated andexpressed. This book appeals to anyone who isinterested in Chinese modern visual culture arthistory and urban study."