在30年代主流文化界和知識界繼續熱誠地、全然地追求現代性時，一些現代傾向（modernist）的文化知識份子在電影和其他媒體中更多元地實踐着五四時期菁英知識份子的"全盤反傳統主義"(Totalistic Antitraditionalism)，他們將這種熱情訴諸于積極塑造以新興的知識女性為代表的中國"新女性"身上。 然而，在對電影這樣新興舶來品的媒介使用和對西方一些基本"電影語言"（cinematography）的效仿中，某些源于儒家的中國核心傳統價值和審美觀念，被有意識或無意識地挪用到電影人物形塑和審美韻味的建構中。這樣，不僅傳統經典的"儒家閨秀"藉着當代知識女性的新身份被重新包裝和再現，一些極具中國美學特色的電影處理技巧也在其中雛形漸現。更重要地，傳統閨秀的美學特點解釋了新的受教育女性謂之"新"的原由。本文（1）將從"美德"這一概念的傳承和模糊性入手，追溯禮教、道德之于傳統人物建構的意義和時代困境；（2）通過淺論閨秀人物與儒家美學思想的關係，以梳理多重道德審美的層次，並提煉"節"、"止"、 "制"的傳統美學建構機理；（3）通過提煉的這套可以參照施行的電影分析途徑，分析相關電影並蒐集分析證據；（4）借用銀幕內外的實踐策略來梳理和回應"傳統與現代"不同層次的矛盾衝突、協作重構，最後不僅可以進一步探究以30年代電影人為代表的人物思想矛盾，還可以辨析中國現代性的駁雜深刻之處。 In the 1930s when dominant intellectuals were cordially and overtly aspiring over modernity, a bunch of modernist intellectuals diversely practiced Totalistic Antitraditionalism inherited from MFM (May Fourth Movement) elite, on silver screen and other media. The educated women are both mediated representatives of Chinese "new" women and bearers of modernists' passion and dreams. Nevertheless, while accessing the film (as exotic and "new" medium then) and imitating western cinematography, some traditional core values and aesthetic ideologies rooted in Confucianism are consciously or unconsciously appropriated in constructing characteristic and auratic aesthetics on silver screen. Hence, not only the classic Confucian guixiu has been repacked and represented with new identity as contemporary educated women, but also some Chinese aesthetical patterns have emerged in film. More importantly, the aesthetics embedded in classic guixiu explain why new educated women are representatives of the "new". This paper (1) starts with the inheritance and ambiguity of the concept "meide (virtue)", before deploying how conventional Li (rites) and Daode (moral) contribute to both constructive significance and chronic dilemma of characters. (2) By virtue of analyzing classic guixiu and Confucius aesthetics, it is further enacted how moral aesthetics are enriched with multiple layers. Moreover, a type of constructive mechanism related to abridge (jie), stop (zhi) and restraint (zhi) is generalized. (3) Then, it deduced some framework that could be approached to filmic analysis as well as collecting data. (4) Lastly, the question about "traditional and modern" will be echoed with on and off screen strategic practices, in terms of contradiction, conflict, collaboration and reconstitution on different levels. Thus, not only the rooted dilemma in the 1930s could be revealed by means of analyzing contradictions of filmic people, but also the hybridity, heterogeneous and profundity of Chinese modernity could be further indicated.

My research seeks to understand ways in which English-educated Chinese women in cosmopolitan Singapore bolstered their identity while living under the influences of Confucian values, patriarchal nation-building and racial concerns. My thesis examines women who have themselves been lost in translation when they were co-opted into the creation of a viable state after 1965. Often women are treated as adjuncts in the patriarchal state, particularly since issues of gender are not treated with the equality they deserve in the neo-Confucian discourse. This thesis takes an unconventional approach to how women have been viewed by utilizing primary sources including Her World and Female magazines from the 1960s and 1990s, and subsequent material from the blogosphere. I analyze images of women in these magazines to gain an understanding of how notions of gender and communitarianism/race intersect. By looking at government-sponsored advertising, my work also investigates the kind of messages the state was sending out to these women readers. My examination of government-sponsored advertisements, in tandem with the existing mainstream consumer advertising directed at women provides therefore a unique historical perspective in understanding the kinds of pressures Singaporean women have faced. Blogging itself is used as a counterpoint to show how new spaces have opened up for those who have felt constricted in certain ways by the authorities, women included. It would be fair to say that women?s magazines and blogging have served as ways for women to bolster their self worth, despite the counter-argument that some highly idealized and unhealthy images of women are purveyed. The main target group of glossy women?s magazines is English-educated women readers who are, by virtue of the Singapore?s demographics, mostly Chinese.