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Litfest interview: Anna Greenspan
By Andrew Chin (https://www.thatsmags.com/shanghai/post?author=Andrew Chin), March 5, 2014
0
An urbanism and digital culture professor at NYU Shanghai, Greenspan maps the city of
tomorrow in Shanghai Future: Modernity Remade. While Shanghai is already a major global
hub, she examines its ambitions to become a megatropolis similar to 19th- and 20th-century
London and New York, mappings Shanghai’s future and how the city is reinventing the idea of
the future itself. Greenspan is also a founder of the Shanghai Studies Society and leads the
Accelerated City Walks for Context Travel.
0
You wrote the book Shanghai Future: Modernity Remade. Could you talk a bit about the
project and what were some of the challenges?
This book is the result of more than a decade long exploration of Shanghai. We came here in
2002 and I spent many years roaming the streets and alleys learning and thinking about the
issues that emerge from the city’s dynamic and fascinating rise. When I arrived, I was
particularly struck by the city’s aspirational feel and the apparent embrace of modernity that –
coming from the West - I had thought now belonged to the past. My aim in writing this book
was to explore Shanghai’s attempt to recreate itself as a future metropolis through an in depth
investigation of the contemporary city.
The main challenges were the ones that any long term resident knows too well. Every time I
come back from the blue skies and more peaceful surroundings of elsewhere landing in the
smog of Shanghai is difficult. What I tend to do then is go for a walk in some bit of the city that
I don’t know well or that has been recently transformed. This is usually enough to remind me
that this place, right now, is one of the most exciting zones on the planet and that that is why I
live here.
In the book you compare Shanghai's ambitions to become a megatropolis similar to
19th and 20th century London and New York. What are some of the similarities and
differences between these city's developments in your opinion?
The mass urbanization, increasing globalization, widespread and rapid industrialization – in
short the processes of modernization -- that are occurring in China today are similar to
processes that reshaped Europe and America in the 19th and 20th century. However, the book
questions the fairly widespread idea that what is happening here now is simply a repetition of
what has already occurred elsewhere, that China is following a well-laid path and that we know
where all this will lead. Instead, I believe, that the current wave of mass urbanization, which
emerges from the history and culture of this particular place will reshape our conception of
modernity and our sense of the future in ways that are both unprecedented and
unanticipated.
In your opinion, how does a major city's development reflect the current culture of its
residents?
There is an idea of urban development that is empty of the specificities of culture and place.
According to this conception, Shanghai will grow into a future metropolis that could be located
anywhere. This mode of urbanism, which is associated with the idea that modernization
equals Westernization, finds expression both in the built landscape as well as in cultural trends
and is clearly evident throughout the newly rising cities in China. However, in Shanghai at least,
there has been a strong counter current to this trend, which dates back at least to the late
1990s, that sees the city’s future as intimately connected to the architecture and culture that
flourished in Shanghai’s golden age of the 1920s and 30s. I am extremely interested in the
ways in which this haipai culture is being reimagined and recreated in the 21st century.
You're also an urbanism and digital culture professor at NYU Shanghai. How are your
courses going and has the school grown in your time there?
I have been teaching at NYU Shanghai since 2009. For most of that time NYU Shanghai was a
study away site in which students from America came for a semester or two. This year NYU
Shanghai has transitioned into a full degree granting campus so the student body is changing.
There is now a cohort of freshman students half of whom are local. Next year we will move to
our new campus in Pudong. NYU Shanghai is, like the city itself, undergoing vast and rapid
transformation.
From a writing perspective, how did you approach this subject and what has been the
feedback on the project so far?
This book comes out of both my long-term exploration of Shanghai as well as my background
as a philosopher. My approach has been to write in detail about the urban transformation I
have witnessed over the past decade whilst engaging with broader ideas and debates about
urbanism, modernity, and conceptions of the future. My aim has been to write a book that is
based in ideas but is written in a non-academic language that will appeal to anyone interested
in the city or in the processes of contemporary urbanism.
What can people expect from your Shanghai Lit Fest talk?
I am honored to have as a moderator my wonderful colleague Professor Shaoyi Sun who is an
expert on Chinese cinema. Weplan to talk about how the perception that‘Shanghai looks like
the future’is being depicted in the films of today. This will lead us into a more wide-ranging
discussion about Shanghai futurism and its reshaping of modernity.
Is there anything you would like to add?
This book builds upon myearly explorations of Shanghai, which were written up for
Urbanatomy guide books. In some ways Shanghai Future is a sequel to these in depths guides
to the city.
// March 15, 11am, RMB75. Glamour Bar, 6/F, No.5 the Bund, by Guangdong Lu, by Zhongshan
Dong Yi Lu 中山东一路, 外滩5号6楼, 近广东路 (6350 9988)
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