Media and Memory in New Shanghai, Western Performances of Futures Past

Thriving on its long-term collective memory of possessing futurity, the mega city of Shanghai on the Eastern seaboard of China is once more jockeying for the position as Asia's foremost modern place. An essential part of the regeneration of contemporary Shanghai has been the return, not only of foreign direct investment, but of 'Westerners' to the city since the 1990s. Contributing to current debates about the globality and mediatization of memories, Lagerkvist critically interrogates Shanghai's spectacular resurrection into an emergent world center from the vantage point of how Western elites (tourists, expatriates and travel bloggers) partake in the production of New Shanghai. Through performances of memory, Westerners consume the regenerative nostalgia of the city. This book shows that these mediatized memory practices become essential for the city and tie in with how the municipal government (in tandem with international scriptings of the city in for example films and travel journalism) is currently theming Shanghai by situating memories of futures past and visions for the future in a coherent narrative and sensory-emotive realm of experience.