Popular Culture in Asia (Marc L. Moskowitz)

Marc L. Moskowitz
Office: HM 209
Tel: (803) 777-1536
Office Hours: T/Th 1:30-3:00 and by appointment.

E-mail: moskowit@gwm.sc.edu
Web Page: http://people.cas.sc.edu/moskowitz

Classroom: HM318
Time: T/Th 11:00-12:15

This course will focus on popular culture in East Asia. This will include mass media such as film, music, television programming, Japanese manga, and other related topics. The course will also include theoretical examinations of cultural hybridity, colonial pasts, alternate modernities, local vs. transnational space, and the adoption and adaptation of foreign influences.

Jordan, David K., Andrew Morris, and Marc L. Moskowitz, ed. 2004. The Minor Arts of Daily Life: Popular Culture in Modern Taiwan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.

Attendance and Participation	50
Midterm 1	250
Midterm 2	350
Final Exam	350
Total Possible Points	1000

In keeping with university policy, everyone is allowed four absences. I assume that they will be for a good reason so you do not have to tell me why you miss class. Be careful, though. This does not mean that you have four days to skip class and then I will give you extra days if you have a doctor’s note—these four days are to cover medical and other emergencies. Needless to say, perfect attendance will be advantageous in mastering the materials for the exams.

The movies may appear on the exams. If you miss class it is your responsibility to get notes from a classmate and/or try to see it. I will put the movies on library reserve but I cannot guarantee that you will be able to see them at the library. I do not lend my movies out. I also reserve the right to show a movie on a day other than the one it is scheduled for. Attendance is therefore important in this way as well. Warning: Some of the movies will contain graphic violence, nudity, and/or profane language—please think seriously about whether or not this will offend you before you take this class.

In order to protect the majority of students who are honest, anyone who is caught cheating will flunk the class (not just the assignment) and I will report him or her to the dean.

T 1/15 Week One—Introduction
Movie—Joint Security Area (Park Chan-Wook. 2000. 108 min.)
No assigned reading for today.

Th 1/17
Watson, James L. 1997. "Transnationalism, Localization, and Fast Foods in East Asia." In Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia, ed. James L. Watson, 1-38. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

T 1/22 Week Two—History
Movie—Huozhe {To Live} (Zhang Yimou. 1994. 125 min.)
Minor Arts. Chapter 1. Andrew D. Morris—Taiwan's History: An Introduction.
and
Gold, Thomas B. 1993. “Go with Your Feelings: Hong Kong and Taiwan Popular Culture in Greater China.” The China Quarterly 136: 907-925.

Th 1/24
Jones, Andrew. 2001. "The Gramophone in China." Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age. Duke University Press.

T 1/29 Week Three—Popular Music
Movie—Perhaps Love (Peter Chan. 2005. 107 min.)
Moskowitz, Marc L. (In press) “Message in a Bottle: Lyrical Laments and Emotional Expression in Mandopop.” The China Quarterly.
and
Moskowitz, Marc L. (In press) "Mandopop Under Siege: Culturally Bound Criticisms of Taiwan’s Pop Music.” Popular Music.

Th 1/31
Atkins, E. Taylor. 2000. "Can Japanese Sing the Blues? "Japanese Jazz" and the Problem of Authenticity." Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture, ed. Craig, Timothy J. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe.

T 2/5 Week Four—Kawaii!!!
Movie—Memories of Matsuko (Tetsuya Nakashima. 2006. 130 min.)
Kinsella, Sharon. 1995. "Cuties in Japan." In Women, Media and Consumption in Japan, ed. Lise Skiov and Brian Moeran, 220-254. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
and
Raz, Aviad E. 1999. "Receptions of TDL-Disney." In Riding the Black Ship: Japan and Tokyo Disneyland, 156-191. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

T 2/12 Week Five—Religion and Artistic Representation
Movie—Princess Mononoke (Hayao Miyazaki. 1999. 134 min.)
Minor Arts. Chapter 2. Paul R. Katz—Chicken-Beheading Rituals and Dispute Resolution in Taiwan.
and
Minor Arts. Chapter 3. David K. Jordan—Pop in Hell: Chinese Representations of Purgatory in Taiwan.

Th 2/14
MacWilliams, Mark W. 2000. "Japanese Comic Books and Religion: Osamu Tezuka's Story of the Buddha." Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture., ed. Craig, Timothy J. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe.

T 2/19 Week Six—Science Fiction and New Technologies
Movie—Ghost in the Shell (Mamoru Oshii. 1996. 82 min.)
Napier, Susan J. 1996. "Panic Sites: The Japanese Imagination of Disaster from Godzilla to Akira." In Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture, ed. John Wittier Treat, 235-262. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.

Th 2/21
Gil, Tom. 1998. "Transformational Magic: Some Japanese Super-Heroes and Monsters." In The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture: Gender, Shifting Boundaries and Global Cultures, ed. Dolores P. Martinez, 33-55. New York: Cambridge University Press.

T 2/26 Week Seven—Gender and Sexuality
Movie—Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee. 1994. 124 min.)
Minor Arts. Chapter 4. Scott Simon—From Hidden Kingdom to Rainbow Community: The Making of Gay and Lesbian Identity in Taiwan.
and
Napier, Susan J. 1998. "Vampires, Psychic Girls, Flying Women and Sailor Scouts: Four Faces of the Young Female in Japanese Popular Culture." In The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture: Gender, Shifting Boundaries and Global Cultures, ed. D.P. Martinez, 91-109. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Th 2/28
Allison, Ann. 2000. "Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch Box as Ideological State Apparatus." In Permitted and Prohibited Desires: Mothers, Comics, and Censorship in Japan, 81-104. Berkeley: University of California Press.

T 3/4 Week Eight—Mass Mediated Discourses
Movie—Tampopo {Dandelion} (Juzo Itami. 1987. 114 min.)
Minor Arts. Chapter 5. Alice R. Chu—Taiwan's Mass Mediated Crisis Discourse: Pop Politics in an Era of Political TV Call-in Shows.

Th 3/6
Zhao Yuezhi. 2002. "The Rich, the Laid-off, and the Criminal in Tabloid Tales: Read All about It!" In Popular China: Unofficial Culture in a Globalizing Society, ed. Perry Link, Richard P. Madsen, and Paul G. Pickowicz, 111-135. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

T 3/18 Week Nine—Race and Representation
Movie—Chungking Express (Wong Kar-Wai. 1996. 102 min.)
Minor Arts. Chapter 6. Chin-ju Lin—The Other Woman in Your Home: Social and Racial Discourses on “Foreign Maids" in Taiwan.

T 3/25 Week Ten—Material Culture
Movie—The Wedding Banquet (Ang Lee. 1993. 108 min.)
Minor Arts. Chapter 7—Shuen-Der Yu—Hot and Noisy: Taiwan's Night Market Culture.
and
Yu Shuen-Der. n.d. "Jiangnan Domestic Furniture in Taiwan: Sense, Memory and Historical Consciousness."

Th 3/27
Rofel, Lisa. 1999. "Museum as Women's Space: Displays of Gender in Post-Mao China." In Spaces of Their Own: Women's Public Sphere in Transnational China, ed. Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, 116-132. Minnesota: The University of Minnesota Press.

T 4/1 Week Eleven—Doxa, Habitus, and the Gaze
Movie—Raise the Red Lantern (Zhang Yimou. 1991. 125 min.)
McGranahan, Carole. 1996. "Miss Tibet, or Tibet Misrepresented? The Trope of Woman-as-Nation in the Struggle for Tibet." In Beauty Queens on the Global Stage: Gender, Contests, and Power, ed. Colleen Ballerino Cohen, Richard Wilk, and Beverly Stoeltje,161-184. New York: Routledge.

Th 4/3
Adrian, Bonnie. 2006. "Geographies of Style: Taiwan's Bridal Photography Empire." Visual Anthropology 19: 1-13.

T 4/8 Week Twelve—Body/Power
Movie—Infernal Affairs (Wai Keung Lau. 2002. 101 min.)
Minor Arts. Chapter 8. Chien-Juh Gu—Disciplined Bodies in Direct Selling: Alternative Economic Culture in Taiwan.
and
Bender, Shawn. 2005. "Of Roots and Race: Discourses of Body and Place in Japanese Taiko Drumming." Social Science Japan Journal 8(2): 197-212.

Th 4/10
Tasker, Yvonne. 1997. "Fists of Fury: Discourses of Race and Masculinity in Martial Arts Cinema." In Race and the Subject of Masculinities. London: Duke University Press.

T 4/15 Week Thirteen—Sports, Masculinity, and Emasculinization
Movie—Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee. 2000. 120 min.)
Minor Arts. Chapter 9. Andrew Morris—Baseball, History, the Local and the Global in Taiwan.
and
Andrew Morris. 2002. "'I Believe You Can Fly': Basketball Culture in Postsocialist China." In Popular China: Unofficial Culture in a Globalizing Society, ed. Perry Link, Richard P. Madsen, and Paul G. Pickowicz, 9-38. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Th 4/17
Brownell, Susan. 1999. "Strong Women and Impotent Men: Sports, Gender, and Nationalism in Chinese Public Culture." In Spaces of Their Own: Women's Public Sphere in Transnational China, ed. Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, 207-232. Minnesota: The University of Minnesota.

T 4/22 Week Fourteen—Filmic Nostalgia and the Invention of Tradition
Movie—A Chinese Ghost Story (Cheng Xiaodong.—Tsui Hark producer—1987. 93 min.)
Minor Arts. Chapter 10. Marc L. Moskowitz—Yang-Sucking She-Demons: Penetration, Fear of Castration, and other Freudian Angst in Modern Chinese Cinema.

Syllabus

Required Reading List