Behind her Cosmopolitan Beauty: Transnational Modern Girl in Japan and Republican China

摘要

Under the overwhelming tide of Western-dominated modernization, the modern girl image appeared around the globe during the 1920s and 1930s through the means of advertising, embellishing and transforming the visual sphere of modern experience. As a consumerist icon highly constructed by media and a product of capitalist commodification of the female body, the modern girl embodies the spontaneity and autonomy of consumer culture at the same time. This paper analyzes the visual archives of the modern girl from Japan and Republican China, exploring the image-making of modern girl in the national, cultural and gender dimension.