Contemporary Popular Culture in East Asia

This course introduces students to the actual situation of Contemporary East Asian Popular Culture (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan) as research subjects. This course also offers students the theoretical foundations for analysis of East Asian popular culture from the meanings of ‘culture’ to cultural industry, intercultural representation, globalization, on presenting several case studies, that can be used to study East Asian contemporary popular culture. This course permits to train students to analyze East Asian popular culture by themselves as research subject.

The aim of this course is to make students acquainted with relevant issues in contemporary East Asian popular culture and to introduce the theoretical base for popular culture analysis.

English language proficiency.

1. Introduction to the theory and problematics of popular culture. 2. Introduction to East Asian popular culture. Japanese popular culture in the past and in the present. 3. Chinese and Taiwanese popular culture in the past and in the present. 4. Korean popular culture in the past and in the present. 5. Social research in Japanese popular culture. 6. Social research in Chinese and Taiwanese popular culture. 7. Social research in Korean popular culture. 8. Americanization of East Asian popular culture. 9. Japanese popular culture: tradition and modernity 10. East Asian popular culture in a global context

Ability to explain East Asian regional peculiarities through the lens of popular culture. Ability to define the main concepts used in popculture studies. Ability to define the peculiarities and differencies of Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Taiwanese popular culture. Ability to evaluate the features of contemporary popular culture in East Asia. Completion of the course assignments by following format guidelines and deadlines. Ability to engage in an active discussion during lectures and seminars.