THIRD URBAN REPRESENTATIONS CONFERENCE: SHANGHAI DATES: Shanghai conference March 12-14, 2009, at East China Normal University (ECNU) Hosted by New York University in Shanghai program at ECNU's Zhongshan North Road Campus OPEN TO THE PUBLIC Note: We are not looking for presenters, but welcome audience participation. The conference hall has ample seating room. Queries about conference attendance go to Andrew Field: Afield@ciee.org Sponsored by ECNU-Cornell Cross-Culture Study Center New York University Shanghai Program Northwestern University Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture GENERAL CONFERENCE THEMES: How do exemplary cities of the twenty-first century represent themselves and their histories, and how do such representations influence city development and promotion? Following two general Urban Representations Conferences held at Northwestern University in Chicago, the third Urban Representations Conference will be held in Shanghai, where Shanghai­based scholars and specialists on urban culture in other cities will meet to discuss ³urban representations² with a focus on Shanghai. Papers need not focus on Shanghai but should present some comparative analysis so that we may find a common ground. The concept of ³urban representations² suggests at least three sets of puzzles, all of which raise particular problems in the context of Shanghai: (1) How is ³the urban² represented? In what way have cinema, television, print (including literature) and digital media represented the city and urban publics? To what extent is the city, and its varied publics, constructed through media technologies and exhibition spaces? How are social identities of ethnicity, sexuality, gender and class represented, and do different genres represent cities differently? In the case of Shanghai and the Shanghainese, how is the city and its publics constructed against the larger context of China and influenced by the Chinese state and Chinese state-owned media organizations? A particularly important example will be the 2010 Shanghai World Expo as a massive political project of urban representation. (2) How do individual cities and groups of cities represent themselves? How do architectural and landscape statements, tourist attractions and public relations, work as attempts at urban self-fashioning? What is the relationship between internal and external audiences, locals and tourists, for such representations? In Shanghai we have the question of ³postcolonial nostalgia² and the problematic of representing the ³cosmopolitan² quality of the city¹s culture, including the relationship of the current city¹s global aspirations to its semi-colonial past and the role of the city¹s past and current foreign resident populations in the production of the city¹s distinctive culture. (3) How has ³representation² itself become a post-Fordist urban product? What makes some cities succeed in selling design, representation itself, as a commodity? How does the consumer culture of the city relate to the larger historical and geographic context of the production of the urban culture? In the context of Shanghai we can think here of the production of global cuisine, nightlife cultures, and other forms of consumer culture that construct Shanghai as a ³global city² with a central role as a regional service and creative center. LOCATION East China Normal University Shanghai, Yifu Building, Room 431 The conference room is in the Yifu Building on ECNU campus. To get there, you must go thru the ECNU main gate (most cab drivers will know how to get there) and walk down the main road, passing over one canal (Waterlily River). There is a cluster of buildings on the left side and the Yifu Building is among them. If you pass over the second canal, you know you've gone too far. ORGANIZERS Zhao Zhaojian, Director, ECNU Center for Global Education Shi Mingzheng, Director, NYU Shanghai Andrew Field, Academic Director, CIEE Shanghai Wendy Griswold, Northwestern University, Chicago James Farrer, Institute of Comparative Culture, Sophia University, Tokyo PRESENTERS Lori Delale-OŒConnor, Sociology, Northwestern University Guoli Dong, Sociology, Shanghai University Jin Jiang, History, East China Normal University Brendan Kredell, Sociology, Northwestern University Hanlong Lu, Sociology, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Anne Rademacher, Sociology, NYU Xuefei Ren, Sociology, Michigan State University Shaoyi Sun, Film Studies, Shanghai University Jeffrey Wasserstrom, History, University of California, Irvine Bin Xu, Sociology, Northwestern University Angela Yiu, Literature, Sophia University Hai Yu, Sociology, Fudan University Sharon Zukin, Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center SCHEDULE OF PRESENTATIONS, March 12 ­ 14, 2009 Thursday March 12 Graduate student roundtable 3 - 4:30 p.m. Lori Delale-O¹Connor, ³Of Smokestacks and Shikumen: (Re)presenting the past in Pittsburgh and Shanghai. ² Brendan Kredell, ³Cinema-going in Contemporary Shanghai.² Bin Xu, ³Tradition in Small Publics: Han Clothing, Anachronism, and Shanghai Urban Culture.² Welcome Session and Dinner 5:00 ­ 7:30 p.m. (for conference presenters only) Andrew Field, ³Dancing Shanghai² 5-6 p.m. Friday March 13 9:00 - 10:00 Jishun Zhang, Welcome remarks Mingzheng Shi, Welcome address Wendy Griswold, ³The idea of urban representations² 10:30 ­ 12:00 Jeffrey Wasserstrom, ³Imagining Shanghai¹s Future, 1850-2010 and Beyond² Jin Jiang, "Stage Sisters: Women and the City in Visual Narratives of China¹s Recent Past." 1:30 - 3:00 Sharon Zukin, ³Conflicting Images of Authenticity: Has the City ŒLost Its Soul?¹² Hai Yu, ³Building Chinese cosmopolitan place beyond state/society confrontation: Case study of Tianzifang.² 3:30 ­ 5:30 James Farrer, ³New Shanghailanders or New Shanghainese? Representations of the immigrant experience in Shanghai² Hanlong Lu, "What is being represented by 'city name cards' in China?" Guoli Dong, "ŒStirring glue¹ as Cultural Strategy and Social Behavior in Shanghai² Saturday March 14 9:00 ­ 10:30 Ren Xuefei, ³Metropolitanization of the State: Scalar Transformations and Mega-Project Development in Shanghai and Mumbai² Anne Rademacher, ³When is Housing an Environmental Problem? Reforming Informality in Kathmandu² 11:00 ­ 12:30 Angela Yiu, ³Modernism and Spatial Configuration in Interwar Japanese Fiction² Shaoyi Sun, ³Trial by Space: The Cinematic City and the Construction of the Nation- State²