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In a book that is part microhistory, part memoir, Jie Li salvages intimate recollections by successive generations of inhabitants of two vibrant, culturally mixed Shanghai alleyways. These voices include workers, intellectuals, Communists, Nationalists, foreigners, compradors, wives, concubines, and children who witnessed spectacles so full of farce and pathos they could only be whispered as secret histories. Exploring three dimensions of private life--territories, artifacts, and gossip--Li re-creates the sounds, smells, look, and feel of home over a tumultuous century.
List of contents
AcknowledgmentsList of IllustrationsDramatis PersonaeIntroduction1. FootholdFoundations and Original Residents (1910s--1940s)After the Communist Revolution (1950s--1970s)A New Generation Comes of Age (1970s--1990s)Alleyway Homes as a Microhistorical Stage2. HavenDomestic Artifacts as Historical WitnessesHome Searches: The Cultural Revolution in the AlleywayPetty Urbanites: Reinventing Privacy in the Reform EraThrift3. GossipA Cultural Genealogy of Shanghai GossipAlleyway Space as a Milieu for GossipSeveral Lifetimes to a Life: Women on the MarginsA Room of Her Own: The Whispers of Aunt Duckweed4. DemolitionDemolition MicropoliticsRuins of the Old NeighborhoodNail Houses and Rustless BoltsCodaNotesSelected BibliographyIndex
About the author
Jie Li is assistant professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.
Summary
In a book that is part microhistory, part memoir, Jie Li salvages intimate recollections by successive generations of inhabitants of two vibrant, culturally mixed Shanghai alleyways. These voices include workers, intellectuals, Communists, Nationalists, foreigners, compradors, wives, concubines, and children who witnessed spectacles so full of farce and pathos they could only be whispered as secret histories. Exploring three dimensions of private life--territories, artifacts, and gossip--Li re-creates the sounds, smells, look, and feel of home over a tumultuous century.
