Advanced Issues in East Asian Contemporary Society
Code: 101524 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2500244 East Asian Studies | OT | 4 |
Contact
- Name:
- Tomás Grau De Pablos
- Email:
- tomas.grau@uab.cat
Teachers
- Tomás Grau De Pablos
- Oscar García Aranda
Teaching groups languages
You can view this information at the end of this document.
Prerequisites
In order to enrol to this course, students should have passed all the credits corresponding to 1st, 2nd and 3rd years of East Asian Studies. Students must have oral and written comprehension competences in English in order to understand readings and audiovisual material which will be used.
Objectives and Contextualisation
The course aims to study in depth current issues about Chinese and Japanese contemporary societies. The course will be divided into sections, focus on China and Japan, that will be taught by different teachers. The objective is to make possible a critical approach to different social and cultural phenomena from a methodological point of view of social sciences, ethics and cultural analysis.
Competences
- Comparing and critically assessing the different social environments in the field of East Asia.
- Designing and managing projects.
- Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
- Developing self-learning strategies.
- Ensuring the quality of one's own work.
- Know and understand the characteristics of society and social processes in East Asia.
- Knowing and using the information and communication technology resources (ICT) in order to collect, produce, analyse and present information related to the East Asian Studies.
- Knowing the history, values, beliefs and ideologies of East Asia in order to understand and critically assess social issues, phenomena, and processes related with that region.
- Respecting the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
- Working in interdisciplinary and intercultural groups.
Learning Outcomes
- Assessing the obtained results in the search information process in order to update the knowledge about political sciences, economy and sociology.
- Comparing and critically assessing the different social environments in the field of East Asia.
- Designing and managing projects.
- Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
- Developing self-learning strategies.
- Ensuring the quality of one's own work.
- Know and understand the characteristics of society and social processes in East Asia.
- Knowing the history, values, beliefs and ideologies of East Asia in order to understand and critically assess social issues, phenomena, and processes related with that region.
- Respecting the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
- Using different tools for specific purposes in the fields of political sciences, economy and sociology.
- Using the specific terminology of political sciences, economy and sociology.
- Working in interdisciplinary and intercultural groups.
Content
The course aims to study in depth current issues about Chinese, Japanese, and Korean contemporary societies, that will be taught by different teachers. The objective is to offer a critical approach to different phenomena from the methodological point of view of sociological and cultural analysis. The specific contents will be indicated in each module's program.
Technology and Society Module
This module will study the convergence that’s been taking place between mass communication technologies and East Asia social developments, from the late 1980s onward. For this reason, its focus will be in the shape that such development is affecting East Asian countries during the 21st century. The keyword that we’ll use to properly make sense of East Asia's current social realities will be that of the platform economy.
New generations, urban tribes and civil society
This module will develop a genealogical retrospective of different representations and manifestations of female agency in East Asia, from the 1980s to the present. Framed in the emergence of new generations and urban tribes, we will analyse these phenomena from a gender perspective, pointing out their negotiation mechanisms with different forms of patriarchal institutional and social authoritarianism.
Activities and Methodology
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Lectures | 35 | 1.4 | 2, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| tutorship | 15 | 0.6 | 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Written assignments, studying, reading assignments | 50 | 2 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 |
Each section of the course is divided into theoretical and practical classes that will require the active participation of students. The use of Virtual Campus will be the common space to exchange information on the subject (announcements, news, materials and other resources, readings, etc.)
The specific methodology of the course is particularly linked to: the reading of texts and other teaching resources; cooperative work in the classroom, including analysis of the various educational resources used (text, audio, images, etc.) with guided discussions; Study of cases; Encourage reflection about the own autonomous learning process; Using information technology and communication (ICT).
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Assessment
Continous Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Presentations in class and/or discussions | 35% | 16.5 | 0.66 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 |
| Written assignments | 35% | 30 | 1.2 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 |
| Written tests | 30% (two tests at 20% and 10% each) | 3.5 | 0.14 | 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12 |
Continuous assessment
Students must provide evidence of their progress by completing various tasks and tests. These activities are detailed in the table at the end of this section of the Study Guide.
Review
When publishing final marks prior to recording them on students' transcripts, the lecturer will provide written notification of a date and time for reviewing assessment activities. Students must arrange reviews in agreement with the lecturer.
Missed/failed assessment activities
Students may retake assessment activities they have failed or compensate for any they have missed, provided that those they have actually performed account for a minimum of 66.6% (two thirds) of the subject's final mark and that they have a weighted average mark of at least 3.5.
The lecturer will inform students of the procedure involved, in writing, when publishing final marks prior to recording them on transcripts. The lecturer may set one assignment per failed or missed assessment activity or a single assignment to cover a number of such activities. Under no circumstances may an assessment activity worth 100% of the final mark be retaken or compensated for. In case of retaking, maximum grade will be 5.
Classification as "not assessable"
In the event of the assessment activities a student has performed accounting for just 25% or less of the subject's final mark, their work will be classified as "not assessable" on their transcript.
Misconduct in assessment activities
Students who engage in misconduct (plagiarism, copying, personation, etc.) in an assessment activity will receive a mark of “0” for the activity in question. In the case of misconduct in more than one assessment activity, the student involved will be given a final mark of “0” for the subject. Assessment activities in which irregularities have occurred (e.g. plagiarism, copying, impersonation) are excluded from recovery.
Single assessment
This subject may be assessed under the single assessment system in accordance with the terms established in the academic regulations of the UAB and the assessment criteria of the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting
Students must make an online request within the period established by the faculty and send a copy to the teacher responsible for the subject, for the record.
Single assessment will be carried out in person on one day during week 16 or 17 of the semester. The Academic Management Office will publish the exact date and time on the faculty website.
On the day of the single assessment, teaching staff will ask the student for identification, which should be presented as a valid identification document with a recent photograph (student card, DNI/NIE or passport).
Single assessment activities
The final grade for the subject will be calculated according to the following percentages:
40% Workin Paper and 20% Oral Evaluation: Students will have to submit an individual written work that must selected from the research lines offered at the beginning of classes. Once presented, the student must defend it with an oral presentation, in which synthesys and argumentation, knowledge of the topic as well as its relationship with the subjects treated in class will act as indicators of prowess.
40% Writing Test: A test wil be delivered to evaluate the student’s grasp of the section’s content. These tests will relate to the texts presented in classroom. The student will need to show that they’ve understood the themes and ideas present in these texts, as well as offer their interpretation.
Grade revision and resit procedures for the subject are the same as those for continual assessment. See the section above in this study guide.
Bibliography
Allison, A. (2013). Precarious Japan. Duke University Press.
Azuma. H. (2009). Otaku: Japan's Database Animals. University of Minnesota Press.
Dijck, J. v., Poell, T., & Waal, M. d. (2018). The Platform Society. Oxford Academic.
Galbraith, P. W. (2014). The Moe Manifesto. Tuttle Publishing.
Gottlieb, N. & McLelland, M. (2003). Japanese Cybercultures. Routledge
Jin, D. Y. (2015). Digital Platforms, Imperialism and Political Culture. London: Routledge.
Li, L. (2019). Zoning China: Online Video, Popular Culture, and the State
Kingston, J. (2014). Critical Issues in Contemporary Japan. Routledge.
Kloet, J. de & Fung, A. (2017). Youth Cultures in China. Polity.
Saito. T. (2013). Hikikomori: Adolescence without End. University of Minnesota Press.
___ (2011). Beautiful Fighting Girl. University of Minesota Press.
Sasakibara, G. (2004)。Modern History of Beautiful Girls (美少女的現代史). Kodansha.
Steinberg, M. (2019). The Platform Economy: How Japan Transformed the Consumer Internet. University of Minnesota Press
Yoon, K. (2020) Digital Mediascapes of Transnational Korean Youth Culture. Routledge.
Software
No specific software will be used.
Language list
| Name | Group | Language | Semester | Turn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (PAUL) Classroom practices | 1 | Catalan/Spanish | second semester | morning-mixed |