Chinese 394PI - Chinese Popular Culture

This comprehensive survey of popular culture in modern China has two main purposes: first, providing a structured context for students to reflect on their learning in Chinese language, literature, and culture; second, enabling the students to explore and integrate the connections between their lived experience of Chinese culture and training through General Education in literature, film, history, sociology, political science, anthropology and communications. Students will engage with learning and experience through multiple ways. We will examine various forms of popular culture: newspaper, magazines, advertisements, popular literature, film, television, music, theater, folk arts, posters, fashion, festivities, digital media, etc. We will apply theories to actual cases and look at these cases contextually through a multifaceted perspective: cultural, socio-political, psychological, and ideological. Issues to consider throughout this course will cover: how to define popular culture in modern China? What is the relationship between popular and elite culture? How does popular culture work in structuring and shaping Chinese life? What role does popular culture play in Chinese pursuit of modernity and global membership? Satisfies the Integrative Experience requirement for BA-Chinse majors.