The Threat of the Modern Girl: Race, Class, and Gender in a Netherlands Indie Newspaper

The rise of the modern girl, a global phenomenon of the 1920s and 1930s, profoundly influenced notions of race, class, and gender in late-colonial Indonesia. This popular female archetype represented a new world in which Asian young women could – for the first time – participate in western education and unchaperoned socializing with men. Many men and women alike perceived these freedoms as a challenge to long-established conservative realities. Tom Hoogervorst, postdoctoral researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, will explore these contestations through Sin Po, a Malay-language newspaper that catered mostly to Indonesia’s acculturated Chinese community.

Sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities.