Hollywood

1) An investigation into the representation of women in visual culture in the 1980’s and how, if it all, the representations changed over the decade. By visual culture, I mean that I would be looking at movies, political art, movie posters, album covers, posters, magazines, etc. It’s pretty broad, which is why I narrowed it down to the decade, so we’ll see where it goes.

2) My other topic would require a lot more internet research to even start on, but I’d like to look at the 1990s-2000s Shanghai revival. For example, the re-opening of jazz clubs (from the 1920s and 1930s) and the revival of the original Sinified jazz music.

So I’ve been coming across a lot of articles on the “smut” crackdown going on in China right now and thought I’d share some tidbits.

“China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center (CIIRC) said in a statement that all 14 portals named on the list contain content which either go against public morality or harm children’s psychological health. The new list included Microsoft’s MSN China. The CIIRC said the portal’s movie and community sections contain a large number of lewd pictures.”

Also, as of January 12th, they had shutdown/blocked 91 websites in the new year! Interestingly, another article I read said that “China’s fast-growing population of Internet users has risen to 298 million after passing the United States last year to become the world’s largest.” (from http://www.danwei.org, along with the above quote)

Ni hao, everyone!

I’m Amanda and I’m kind of a China-phile (Sinophile?). I’m a second semester senior writing my thesis on the portrayal of women in visual media during the 1950s-1970s in China. In December, I even took a trip to New York City to check out a fantastic exhibit on art under Mao. Despite the fact that I’ve spent three semesters pretty much immersing myself in twentieth-century China (but trust me, I’m no expert), I have no idea what I’ll study during this course. I really love advertisements and pop culture/media output, so I suppose the Back Dorm Boys might actually be a good start?

And finally, my Google Reader (I think this tells a lot about a person) includes not only translated Chinese news stories, but cooking blogs, graphic design blogs, wedding blogs, Psychology Today, TreeHugger, and multiple Overheard in… feeds.