Colonialism undressed: Negotiating nudity and the female body in media, arts, and popular medical science in Republican China (1910s - 1949)

赤身裸体的殖民主义：民国时期媒体、艺术和大众医学中的裸体和女性身体的谈判（1910 年代 - 1949 年）

• 批准号: 2882054
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2882054
• 关键词: Colonialism; undressed; Negotiating; nudity; female

Female nudity was a visual novelty in Republican China (1910s-1949). With an explosion of mass media and a radical shift towards a Westernised urban culture, naked women were variously used to shock, tempt, or modernise Chinese audiences. Through analysing contrasting portrayals of women across print media, art, and medical literature through the Republican period, my project will investigate how the conceptualisation of "woman" and "femininity" changed, focusing on how these were informed by new medical discourse on the female body and vice versa. In media, magazines like Shidai Manhua 'Modern Sketch' (1934-1937) used erotic and highly stylised nude or semi-nude women on their front covers as a daring demonstration of modern intellectual and cultural freedoms. Yuefenpai 'Calendar Posters' combined American advertising techniques with traditional Chinese form, using sexualised women to sell products. Throughout the Republican Period, yuefenpai became increasingly erotic, with less emphasis on the products and more on the commodified and ownable naked woman. In contrast, photographs of nude and semi-nude women in magazines targeted at young women, such as Ling Long (1931-1937), were tasteful, showing women doing active things like dance or swimming, and used to demonstrate the potential of empowered young women in modern China. In art, studying nude models was seen as a demonstration of one's own modernness as well as being controversial enough to garner interest. Revolutionaries like Liu Haisu explicitly linked painting nude women to embracing European modernity and rejecting Chinese traditions. Through art, the male viewer-owner/female object relationship was quickly adopted and filtered into society. Whilst female Chinese artists like Pan Yuliang subverted this new gender hierarchy through their own nude portraits, they were still used as scapegoats by male colleagues in the face of public criticism of nude art.This project will also look at scientific and medical literature, analysing how modernising culture and changing conceptualisations of women's bodies transmitted knowledge of gynaecological health and women's health more broadly. Imported Western medical knowledge distributed through textbooks and pamphlets challenged medical practice and the culture surrounding gynaecological treatment. Changing medical practice was codified in media, e.g., adverts for tampons and contraception, and adopted in daily life. The adoption of such practices differed in urban and rural communities, and between generations.Whilst the cultural figure of "Modern Woman" has been widely analysed, there has been no investigation into the sudden emergence of naked women in Chinese media, and no discussion of the interactions between scientific and cultural conceptualisations of "womanhood" and "women. This research will provide a comparative analysis of the different uses of female nudity across media, the arts, and literature - including medical literature - to explore how culture shaped the perceptions and lived experience of women in Republican China. This research will consider a broad context of colonialism, the interface of arts and science, and commercialisation of the female body. Ultimately, this project will help to uncover the crucial role that the naked female body played in Chinese media and culture in the early twentieth century, considering how urban leaders, intellectuals, and women conceptualised gender, biology, and social power.

女性裸体在民国时期（1910 年代至 1949 年）是一种视觉新奇事物。随着大众媒体的爆炸式增长和向西化城市文化的彻底转变，裸体女性被不同地用来震惊、诱惑或现代化中国观众。通过分析民国时期印刷媒体、艺术和医学文献中女性的对比形象，我的项目将调查“女性”和“女性气质”的概念如何变化，重点关注关于女性的新医学话语如何影响这些概念。身体，反之亦然。在媒体方面，《时代漫画》《现代素描》（1934-1937）等杂志在封面上使用色情和高度风格化的裸体或半裸体女性，大胆展示了现代知识和文化自由。月分牌“日历海报”将美国广告技巧与中国传统形式相结合，利用性感的女性来推销产品。整个民国时期，月分派变得越来越色情，不再强调产品，而是更加注重商品化和可拥有的裸体女人。相比之下，针对年轻女性的杂志中的裸体和半裸女性照片，例如《玲珑》（1931-1937），则很有品味，展示女性在跳舞或游泳等活跃的活动，并用来展示年轻女性的潜力。现代中国的女性。在艺术领域，研究裸体模特被视为一个人自身现代性的展示，同时也具有足够的争议性以引起人们的兴趣。像刘海粟这样的革命者明确地将绘画裸体女性与拥抱欧洲现代性和拒绝中国传统联系起来。通过艺术，男性观众-所有者/女性客体的关系很快被社会接受并渗透。虽然像潘玉良这样的中国女性艺术家通过自己的裸体肖像颠覆了这种新的性别等级，但面对公众对裸体艺术的批评，她们仍然被男同事当作替罪羊。这个项目还将审视科学和医学文献，分析如何文化现代化和妇女身体观念的变化更广泛地传播了妇科健康和妇女健康知识。通过教科书和小册子传播的进口西方医学知识对医疗实践和妇科治疗文化提出了挑战。改变医疗实践被编入媒体，例如卫生棉条和避孕药具的广告，并在日常生活中采用。这种做法在城乡社区和代际之间的采用情况有所不同。虽然“现代女性”的文化形象已被广泛分析，但没有对中国媒体突然出现的裸体女性进行调查，也没有讨论过“女性”和“女性”的科学和文化概念之间的相互作用。这项研究将对女性裸体在媒体、艺术和文学（包括医学文献）中的不同用途进行比较分析，以探索文化如何塑造人们的看法和观点。女性的生活经历这项研究将考虑殖民主义、艺术与科学的交汇以及女性身体的商业化的广泛背景，最终，该项目将有助于揭示裸体女性身体在中国媒体和文化中所发挥的关键作用。二十世纪初，考虑城市领导人、知识分子和妇女如何概念化性别、生物学和社会权力。