Shanghai Modern: Replaying Futures Past

This article discusses different accounts of Shanghai Modern, the period between 1920s and 1940s in which the city occupied a unique position within China and the world. It places discussions of this period in the context of the resurgence of urban led…

The Power of Spectacle

When people say Shanghai looks like the future the setting is almost always the same. Evening descends and the skyscrapers clustered on the eastern shore of the Huangpu light up. Super towers are transformed into giant screens. The spectacular skyline,…

Production, Creative Firms and Urban Space in Shanghai

This paper examines the firms in Shanghai’s official “Creative Industry Clusters (CICs)”. It aims to contribute to the creative city debate by unveiling the relationships between the production of new economy firms and the reconstruction of urban space…

Norden, Reframed

This paper calls for Norden to be understood as a metaframe. Related formulations like “Nordic art” or “Nordic welfare” function as mesoframes. These trigger multiple framing devices. A cache of related framing devices constitutes a framing archive. Fr…