Shanghai in Myth and History

“Fishing village”, “Paris of the East”, or “a waking dream where everything I could already imagine had been taken to its extreme?” In an iconic role, Marlene Dietrich bragged that “it took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily,” but the local song “Shanghai by Night” retorted, “To look at her/Smiling face/Who would know that she’s troubled inside?” We will examine why Shanghai has gripped the imaginations of so many, placing the material history of the city alongside dream and image, focusing on the four topics of colonialism, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and class.