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Cultural Products, Representational Discourses and Transnational Identities

Code: 44258 ECTS Credits: 10
2024/2025
Degree Type Year
4317118 Global East Asian Studies OB 0

Contact

Name:
Ester Torres Simon
Email:
ester.torres@uab.cat

Teachers

Irene Masdeu Torruella
Alba Serra Vilella
Blai Guarné Cabello
Roberto Figliulo
Tomás Grau De Pablos
Arturo Lozano Mendez
Ester Torres Simon
Maialen Marin Lacarta

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

None.

Part of the teaching is delivered in Spanish and part in English.

Course coordination: Ester Torres Simón


Objectives and Contextualisation

"Cultural Products, Representational Discourses and Transnational Identities" is a compulsory subject worth 10 ECTS that focuses on the study of the global circulation of cultural products and creative industries, identity currents and representational discourses emerging from East Asia, understood as a node of creative-cultural influences, political-identity processes and discursive-representational formations that transcend their regional limits, influencing the rest of the world. The course integrates the theoretical and conceptual contributions of anthropology and sociology, cultural and literary studies, and the study of media and visual culture, with the ultimate goal of understanding the global relevance of popular culture, identity formulations and East Asian representational configurations in the contemporary world.


Learning Outcomes

  1. CA01 (Competence) Be able to interpret the global dynamics of cultural, creative and discursive circulation in the area of East Asia.
  2. CA02 (Competence) Be able to communicate clearly and systematically to diverse interlocutors the global relevance of popular culture, identity formulations and representational discourses related to East Asia.
  3. KA01 (Knowledge) Recognise the cultural, creative and representational complexity and implications of the reality of a global East Asia.
  4. KA02 (Knowledge) Describe the role of new forms of social communication in the global circulation and consumption of products, content and discourses emerging from East Asia.
  5. SA01 (Skill) Analyse the main aspects of the processes of dissemination, (re)production and consumption of cultural products and representational discourses emerging from East Asia on a global scale.
  6. SA02 (Skill) Analyse the changes in the creative-cultural and discursive-representational spheres resulting from East Asia's active participation in the globalisation process.
  7. SA03 (Skill) Analyse in a detail the role of agents and channels of creative-cultural and discursive-representational circulation in global East Asia.
  8. SA04 (Skill) Competently employ theoretical and methodological concepts and perspectives in the study of cultural and creative industries, identity currents and representational discourses related to East Asia that circulate on a global scale.

Content

The subject’s contents are oriented towards the acquisition of knowledge on the global circulation of cultural products and creative industries, the identity currents and the representational discourses that emerge from East Asia. The specific contents of the subject are:

1. Cultural products and creative industries: a) Audiovisual industries and products: musical, literary, artistic, electronic and digital; b) Media convergence: crossmedia narratives, transmedia stories; c) Cultural circulation and (re)production: adaptations, appropriations and practices of social communication and cultural consumption, fandom ecosystem and fan culture.

2. Representational discourses and transnational identities: a) Discursive formations: representational imaginaries, Occidentalisms and Orientalisms, cultural nationalism; b) Transnational routes: migration, diaspora, transnationalism, new mobilities, communities abroad; c) Identity expressions: ethnic, (sub)cultural, referential, gender, orientation, choice, consumption.

3. Linguistic-cultural aspects: a) East Asian languages (China, Japan, Korea): a) history and formation, writing systems, literate cultures, linguistic transfers, language and ideology; b) Sociolinguistic practices: family transmission, teaching, minority languages and language policy; c) Literature in (trans)national contexts: Sinic literature, Japanese literature, Korean literature, canon and translation.


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Lectures, talks 62 2.48 CA01, CA02, KA01, KA02, SA01, SA02, SA03, SA04
Type: Supervised      
Oral defense of essays and debates 25 1 CA01, CA02, KA01, KA02, SA01, SA02, SA03, SA04
Type: Autonomous      
Essays writing, individual study, readings papers/specialized reports, cooperative learning 163 6.52 CA01, CA02, KA01, KA02, SA01, SA02, SA03, SA04

- Lectures

- Readings papers/specialized reports

- Cooperative learning

- Debates

- Talks

- Essays writing

- Oral presentations

- Individual study

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
Oral defense of essays and active participation in face-to-face sessions and activities 10% - 40% 0 0 CA01, CA02, KA01, KA02, SA01, SA02, SA03, SA04
Submission of essays, reports and commentaries 20% - 70% 0 0 CA01, CA02, KA01, KA02, SA01, SA02, SA03, SA04
Theoretical - practical written assessment 10% - 40% 0 0 CA01, CA02, KA01, KA02, SA01, SA02, SA03, SA04

The above information on assessment, assessment activities and their weighting are meant as a guide. The subject's lecturer will provide full information when teaching begins. 

The evaluation in this subject is continuous assessment. This subject is not suitable for single assessment.

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 and missed/failed assessment activities

When publishing final marks prior to recording them on students' transcripts, the lecturer will outline the procedure to carry out their review and, once this is done, the resit procedure, if applicable.

UAB Assessment procedure: https://www.uab.cat/web/studies/graduate/university-master-s-degrees/evaluation/what-is-it-about-1345666815028.html

Misconduct in assessment activities

Students who engage in misconduct (plagiarism, copying, impersonation, 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 resits.


Bibliography

Ang, Ien, 2001, “On Not Speaking Chinese. Diasporic identifications and postmodern ethnicity,” On not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West, Routledge.

Bernards, Brian, 2016, "Sinophone Literature," Kirk A. Denton, ed., The Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature, Columbia University Press.

Cho, Hae-Joang, 2005, “Reading the Korean Wave as a Sign of Global Shift,” Korea Journal 45(4):147-182.

De Seta, Gabriele, 2020, “Sinofuturism as Inverse Orientalism: China’s Future and the Denial of Coevalness,” “The Alternative Sinofuturism Special Issue,” SFRA Review 50(2-3):86-94.  

Denison, Rayna, 2015, Anime: A Critical Introduction, Bloomsbury. 

Gottlieb, Nanette, 2005, Language and Society in Japan. Cambridge University Press.

Guarné, Blai, 2010, “The Japanese Oxymoron: A Historical Approach to the Orientalist Representation of Japan,” Ignacio Lopez-Calvo, ed., One World Periphery Reads the Other: Knowing the “Oriental” in the Americas and the Iberian Peninsula, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Guarné, Blai, ed., 2017, Antropología de Japón: Identidad, discurso y representación, Edicions Bellaterra.

Guarné, Blai and Paul Hansen, 2018, “Introduction: Escaping Japan Inside and Out," Escaping Japan: Reflections on Estrangement and Exile in the Twenty-First Century, Routledge.

Hendry, Joy, 2013, Understanding Japanese Society, Routledge. [Para entender la sociedad japonesa, Edicions Bellaterra, 2018]

Jung, Eun-Young, 2009, “Transnational Korea: A Critical Assessment of the Korean Wave in Asia and the United States,” Southeast Review of Asian Studies 31:69-80.

Kaltenegger, Sandra, 2023, “Modelling Chinese as a Pluricentric Language,” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development.

Keene, Donald, 2020, “La literatura japonesa en el mundo,” Mirai. Estudios Japoneses 4:3-9.

Liu, Petrus and Lisa Rofel, eds., 2020, “The Wandering Earth: Gender, Sexuality, and Geopolitics,” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. [https://u.osu.edu/mclc/online-series/the-wandering-earth/]

Loriguillo-López, Antonio, ed., 2021, Estudios sobre cultura visual japonesa: Videojuegos, manga y anime, Edicions Bellaterra.

Lozano-Méndez, Artur, ed., 2016, El Japón contemporáneo: Una aproximación desde los estudios culturales, Edicions Bellaterra.

Rovira Esteva, Sara, 2010, Lengua y escritura chinas: Mitos y realidades, Edicions Bellaterra.

Salazar, Noel B., 2011, “The Power of Imagination in Transnational Mobilities,” Identites: Global Studies in Culture and Power 18:1-23.   

Shirane, Haruo, Tomi Suzuki, David Lurie, eds., 2015, The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature, Columbia University Press.

Storey, John, 2018, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction (Eighth Edition), Routledge. 

Yang, Wei, 2013, “Voyage into an Unknown Future: A Genre Analysis of Chinese SF Film in the New Millennium,” Science Fiction Studies 40(1):133-147. 

Yeh, Diana, 2014, “Contesting the ‘Model Minority’: Racialization, Youth Culture and ‘British Chinese’/‘Oriental’ Nights,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 37(7):1197–1210.

Yi, Jeong-Duk, 2003, “What is Korean Culture Anyway? A Critical Review,” Korean Journal 43(1):58-82.


Software

We will not use specific sotfware.


Language list

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(TEm) Theory (master) 1 Spanish first semester afternoon