Lure of the Modern

Shu-mei Shih is Associate Professor in East Asian Languages and Cultures, Comparative Literature, and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"Quite apart from her contributions as a literary critic, Shu-mei Shih is able to historicize literary developments of the period most persuasively. Her analysis of Shanghai, the city, and the literary movement it spawned, is crafted with great sensitivity to both history and literature. In many ways, it is the most inclusive historical study of modern Chinese literature in its formative period." - Prasenjit Duara, author of Rescuing History from the Nation "This is the most thoroughly researched study of Chinese modernism published to date. The author's theoretical interventions greatly enrich our understanding of colonial modernity and the stakes of comparison in cross-cultural studies. The book is a major contribution to modern Chinese literary studies and comparative literature." - Lydia Liu, editor of Tokens of Exchange"

• Preface Introduction The Global and Local Terms of Chinese Modernism PART ONE: Desiring the Modern: May Fourth Occidentalism and Japanism 1. Time, Modernism, and Cultural Power: Local Constructions 2. Evolutionism and Experimentalism: Lu Xun and Tao Jingsun 3. Psychoanalysis and Cosmopolitanism: The Work of Guo Moruo 4. The Libidinal and the National: The Morality of Decadence in Yu Dafu, Teng Gu, and Others 5. Loving the Other: May Fourth Occidentalism in the Global Context PART TWO: Rethinking the Modern: The Beijing School 6. Modernity without Rupture: Proposals for a New Global Culture 7. Writing English with a Chinese Brush: The Work of Fei Ming 8. Gendered Negotiations with the Local: Lin Huiyin and Ling Shuhua PART THREE: Flaunting the Modern: Shanghai New Sensationism 9. Modernism and Urban Shanghai 10. Gender, Race, and Semicolonialism: Liu Na'ou's Urban Shanghai Landscape 11. Performing Semicolonial Subjectivity: The Work of Mu Shiying 12.Capitalism and Interiority: Shi Zhecun's Tales of the Erotic-Grotesque Conclusion Semicolonialism and Culture Appendix Later Modernisms: The War Years and Beyond Bibliography Index