Individual And The State, In Daily Life

The individual and the nation are two conflicting constructions in China's modernity. This thesis studies the pictures of modern body in the magazine The Young Companion during the 1920s and 30s, discussing how individualism and nationalism affected the forming of modern body in daily life, thus throwing light on the relations of the individual and the nation/ethnicity in modernity. By studying the healthy and over-all developed body of sports, the fashionable body of modern women and the naked body in modern arts, the thesis ended with the conclusion that in China's modernity, individualism always enhances itself within the nation's framework, while on the other hand, however, it shows a tendency to challenge nationalism from time to time. The complicated relations of the individual and the nation are still meaningful in today's society.