Popular Culture and Modern China

Paint palette icon accompanied by the words "Aesthetics & Culture" with crimson border.

David Wang
Gen Ed 1111   |    Last offered Fall 2024

What is the “people,” and how “popular” can popular culture be in contemporary People’s Republic of China and beyond?

This course examines “popular culture” as a modern, transnational phenomenon and explores its manifestation in Chinese communities (in People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and North America) and beyond. From pulp fiction to film, from “Yellow Music” to “Model Theater”, from animations to internet games, the course looks into how China became modern by participating in the global circulation of media forms, and how China helps in her own way enrich the theory and practice of “popular culture”.