ASIA 288 - Ideologies of Pop Culture: Consuming East Asian ‘Cool’

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as CHJA 288 and MEDS 288) This class examines the transnational flows of cultural products across East Asia (Japan, Korea and China). It begins with a strong grounding in relevant theoretical frameworks from linguistics and anthropology. With these theoretical tools in hand, we investigate processes of production, distribution, transmission and consumption of core cultural products including music, dramas, language, and food. Locating such products within broader political discourses, e.g., government-backed ‘soft power’ efforts, we explore how cultural products become vehicles of often normative ideologies, and concurrently analyze how contemporary youth across East Asia become active participants in cultural production through new and emerging consumption practices. Some of the topics covered include: the consumption of Korean idol performances in Japan, the localization of Japanese anime and drama narratives into Korean and Taiwanese contexts, the flow of media performances between China and Taiwan, the representation of foreign language students in language learning textbooks and the performance of ‘foreign-ness’ in media products. This class emphasizes the application of critical cultural theories to the analysis of new and emerging media products and includes one large project and opportunities for group field work. This course has no prerequisites.

Judit Kroo.

Two 75-minute periods.