Pop Culture in Modern China

Course Description

Summary

Understanding pop culture in modern China is no small effort. This course is not designed to do a comprehensive survey of popular culture in modern China. Instead we will explore ways of listening, speaking, reading, watching, seeing and writing to learn Mandarin Chinese through various forms of pop culture including TV shows, films, sports, newspapers, rock music, and posters in modern China. Throughout the course students will be exposed to all these forms accompanied with texts, vocabulary lists and key grammatical structures to study. Students will also be asked to search and collect snippets of pop culture in China focusing on one or two particular forms of their interest. Instead of simply sharing them in class, students will be asked to write a short essay on them as well as lead a class discussion on topic(s) and/or issue(s) generated from those snippets. Taught in Chinese. Ginger Lin will sign for this course.