Shanghaied into the future: the Asianization of the future Metropolis in post-Blade Runner cinema

The clichéd 1930–1950 Western cinematic images of Shanghai as a fascinating den of iniquity, and, in contrast, as a beacon of modernity, were merged in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. As a result, a new standard emerged in science ction lms for the representation of future urban conglomerates: the Asianized metropolis. e standard set by this lm, of a dark dystopian city, populated by creatures of all races and genetic codes, will be adopted in most of the representations of future cities in non-Asian cinema. is article traces the representation of Shanghai in Western cinema from its earliest days (1932– Shanghai Express) through Blade Runner (1982) to the present (2013– Her). Shanghai, already in the early 1930s, sported extremely daring examples of modern architecture and, at the same time, in non-Asian cinema, was represented as a city of sin and depravity. is dualistic representation became the standard image of the future Asianized city, where its debauchery was o en complemented by modernity; therefore, it is all the more seedy. Moreover, it is Asianized, the “Yellow Peril” incarnated in a new, much more subtle, much more dangerous way. As such, it is deserving of destruction, like Sodom and Gomorrah

Public spaces and inner worlds: Emplaced askesis and architectures of the soul among Tatarstani Muslims

The emergence of Islamic piety movements in post-Soviet Tatarstan has set afoot two parallel processes: (1) religion has progressively left the narrow sphere to which it was relegated during the Soviet era – old age, the private domain and ethnically connoted rural contexts – through a series of steps including the early appearance of makeshift shops catering to a Muslim clientele, the boom of self-cultivation techniques among the region’s youthful Muslim middle class, the subsequent development of a full-blown halal industry and the appearance of a whole range of new places for pietists. The deprivatisation of Islam has thus changed the urban fabric of Tatarstan, making Islamic piety visible in cities and towns. Concomitantly, (2) the ‘inner world’ – the soul (nafs), self or subjectivity – of Muslims has taken centre stage as one of the most (if not the most) central sites of religious life, the main interface for encountering the divine and a ‘space’ that needs constant maintenance through discipline and ascetical practice (askesis) framed in terms of care of one’s soul. Thus, the appearance of new ‘outside’ spaces (halal places) appears to correspond to the configuration of new ‘inside’ spaces (the subjectivity of religionists). This paper aims to explore this correspondence and to investigate its anthropological implications