Chinese 152:
Introduction to Chinese Popular Cultures,
aka Songstresses and Swordsmen

This course introduces select aspects of 20th century popular Chinese culture, emphasizing those forms that have traveled among different sites within "cultural China": mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the ethnic Chinese populations that have settled in Southeast Asia and North America. Specifically, we will learn about and listen to the popular music that originated in 1930s Shanghai then emerged from 1940s-50s Hong Kong (after the establishment of the PRC in 1949); we will also sample the movie musicals that are associated with this music. We then move on to examine Hong Kong popular film, paying special attention to the action/martial arts film genres. In addition to examining the popular cultural forms themselves, we will also study how contemporary artists have responded to, reflected upon, and reinvented this popular culture in their own works. Finally, throughout the course we will discuss theoretical issues related to popular culture: what is popular culture; how do people respond to or 'consume' popular culture in their daily lives; and the representations of gender roles and other kinds of social identities within popular culture.