Almost 25 years ago, a group of University of Washington faculty members formed the Modern Girl Around the World Research Group. Based in the departments of English, History, International Studies, and Women Studies (now Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies) and drawing on regional expertise from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the United States, they set out to examine the phenomenon of the Modern Girl who emerged around the world in the first half of the twentieth century. Their groundbreaking research has now been published in Chinese, making this innovative work more accessible to a broader audience.
In 2001, the group organized a lecture series at UW, and in 2004, they held a conference in collaboration with the Institute for Gender Studies, Ochanomizu University in Japan. In a 2005 article published in Gender & History, they wrote: “In cities from Beijing to Bombay, Tokyo to Berlin, Johannesburg to New York, the Modern Girl made her sometimes flashy, always fashionable appearance. What identified Modern Girls was their use of specific commodities and their explicit eroticism. Modern Girls were known by a variety of names including flappers, garçonnes, moga, modeng xiaojie, schoolgirls, kallege ladki, vamps, and neue Frauen. Through their provocative fashions and pursuit of romantic love, Modern Girls challenged the roles of dutiful daughter, wife and mother.” This research tackled the central question: How did the Modern Girl become a global phenomenon? To answer it, they developed a collaborative, interdisciplinary, and border-crossing research methodology of connective comparison.
In 2008, their research culminated in the book The Modern Girl Around the World: Consumption, Modernity, and Globalization, published by Duke University Press. The book received rave reviews for its transnational and transdisciplinary approach.
As relevant today as ever, this erudite and entertaining volume has now been published as a suitably flashy, silver-colored Chinese edition by the Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. 《摩登女郎：消費、現代性與全球化》came out on March 8th, 2025, International Women's Day, accompanied by an article from the press publicizing its release. Copies at the CUHK Press exhibit during the Association for Asian Studies annual conference in Columbus, Ohio, this March quickly sold out.
UW Alum Ge Jian (Linguistic Anthropology PhD ’16) translated the book’s diverse chapters, which cover histories and cultures from many parts of the world, from English into Chinese. Dr. Jian's excellent translation makes this essential work accessible to scholars and readers in China and beyond. Several original founders of the research group remain faculty at UW, including Priti Ramamurthy (GWSS), Lynn Thomas (History), Alys Weinbaum (English), and Madeleine Yue Dong (History), who led the Chinese publication effort.