EALC 645 - Popular Culture in Modern China

Institution:

University of Pennsylvania

Subject:

Description:

Wang, X. What constitutes Chinese popular culture in the modern age How does popular culture contest and collaborate with modern Chinese literature in the formation of Chinese modernity This course provides a comprehensive examination of modern Chinese popular culture in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other transnational Chinese communities in the past century. From film to literature, from opera to theatre, from music, vintage photographs, to comic books, this course will probe popular culture as it has manifested itself in the dynamic dialogue between high art and mass culture, and trace its sociopolitical, cultural, and aesthetic impact on modern China. Topics will include the sentimental education through reading popular romance as a new form of national pastime; the rise of Chinese pictorial journalism; the gender politics of cross-dressing in Beijing opera as a form of popular entertainment; neo-sensationalism and urban culture in modern Shanghai; the 1930-40s debate over popular and populist culture; the acoustic modernity of Chinese popular music; Maoist model operal and revolutionary melodrama; the cult of masculinity in Hong Kong martial arts fiction and cinema; cultural articulations in post-Maoist Chinese rock music; and the discourse of violence and body in Chinese youth subculture.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.upenn.edu

Phone Number:

(215) 898-5000

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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