During the 1920s and 1930s, in cities from Beijing to Bombay, Tokyo
to Berlin, Johannesburg to New York, the Modern Girl made her
sometimes flashy, always fashionable appearance in city streets and
cafes, in films, advertisements, and illustrated magazines. Modern
Girls wore sexy clothes and high heels; they applied lipstick and
other cosmetics. Dressed in provocative attire and in hot pursuit
of romantic love, Modern Girls appeared on the surface to disregard
the prescribed roles of dutiful daughter, wife, and mother.
Contemporaries debated whether the Modern Girl was looking for
sexual, economic, or political emancipation, or whether she was
little more than an image, a hollow product of the emerging global
commodity culture. The contributors to this collection track the
Modern Girl as she emerged as a global phenomenon in the interwar
period.
Scholars of history, women's studies, literature, and cultural
studies follow the Modern Girl around the world, analyzing her
manifestations in Germany, Australia, China, Japan, France, India,
the United States, Russia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Along the
way, they demonstrate how the economic structures and cultural
flows that shaped a particular form of modern femininity crossed
national and imperial boundaries. In so doing, they highlight the
gendered dynamics of interwar processes of racial formation,
showing how images and ideas of the Modern Girl were used to shore
up or critique nationalist and imperial agendas. A mix of
collaborative and individually authored chapters, the volume
concludes with commentaries by Kathy Peiss, Miriam Silverberg, and
Timothy Burke.
"Contributors" Davarian L. Baldwin, Tani E. Barlow, Timothy
Burke, Liz Conor, Madeleine Yue Dong, Anne E. Gorsuch, Ruri Ito,
Kathy Peiss, Uta G. Poiger, Priti Ramamurthy, Mary Louise Roberts,
Barbara Sato, Miriam Silverberg, Lynn M. Thomas, Alys Eve
Weinbaum
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