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.

在民国时期（1910 -1949），女性裸体是一种视觉上的新奇事物。随着大众传媒的爆炸式增长和向西化城市文化的激进转变，裸体女性被各种各样地用来震惊、诱惑或使中国观众现代化。通过分析共和时期印刷媒体、艺术和医学文献中对女性的对比描绘，我的项目将调查“女性”和“女性气质”的概念是如何变化的，重点关注这些概念是如何被关于女性身体的新医学话语告知的，反之亦然。在媒体上，《时代漫画》（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女性，作为现代知识和文化自由的大胆展示。悦芬派“挂历海报”结合了美国的广告技巧和中国的传统形式，用性感的女人来销售产品。在整个民国时期，乐坊拍变得越来越色情，对产品的强调越来越少，更多的是商品化和可拥有的裸体女人。相比之下，《凌龙》（1931-1937）等针对年轻女性的杂志上刊登的裸体和半裸女性照片则很有品位，展示了女性跳舞或游泳等积极活动，并用来展示现代中国年轻女性的潜力。在艺术领域，研究裸体模特被视为一种展示自己的现代性的方式，同时也会引起足够的争议，引起人们的兴趣。像刘海粟这样的革命家明确地把画裸体女人与拥抱欧洲现代性和拒绝中国传统联系在一起。通过艺术，男性观众-所有者/女性客体关系迅速被接受并渗透到社会中。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制度，但在面对公众对裸体艺术的批评时，她们仍然被男性同事当作替罪羊。该项目还将研究科学和医学文献，分析现代化文化和妇女身体观念的变化如何更广泛地传播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挑战了围绕妇科治疗的医疗实践和文化。不断变化的医疗实践被写入媒体，例如卫生棉条和避孕广告，并被纳入日常生活。这种做法的采用在城市和农村社区以及几代人之间有所不同。虽然“现代女性”的文化形象被广泛分析，但却没有对中国媒体中突然出现的裸体女性进行调查，也没有对“女性”和“女性”的科学和文化概念之间的相互作用进行讨论。本研究将对女性裸体在媒体、艺术和文学（包括医学文学）中的不同用途进行比较分析，以探索文化如何塑造民国女性的观念和生活经历。这项研究将考虑殖民主义的广泛背景，艺术与科学的界面，以及女性身体的商业化。最终，该项目将有助于揭示20世纪初中国媒体和文化中裸露的女性身体所扮演的关键角色，考虑城市领导人、知识分子和女性如何概念化性别、生物学和社会权力。