Globalizing Japanese Pop Culture | TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology
Globalizing Japanese Pop Culture | TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology
2021, TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology
In this course, we will use various Japanese pop culture genres, including comics, anime, food, and music, and examine the interplay between local and global culturescapes. Students are expected to critically inquire into the reality and complexity of people's lives in Japan as reflected in cultural products and to explore cultural transformation in Japan as a part of the dynamics of globalization. "Common" value and knowledge at the local level is challenged as culture traverses borders. From the expansion of Japanese fan communities to feminist criticism of gender representation, we will employ case studies to overcome our conscious and unconscious exoticism and to deepen our understanding of Japanese culture in the global context. Key questions will include the following: What racial and ethnic relationships/tensions underlie global popular culture? What economic and political factors drive trends? How are gender and sexuality represented?
Subject Area(s): Art/Music, Asians/Asian-Americans, Cultural Sociology, Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems, Race, Class and Gender, Racial and Ethnic Relations
Resource Type(s): Assignment, Syllabus
Class Level(s): College 100, College 200, College 300
Class Size(s): Small
2021, TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology
In this course, we will use various Japanese pop culture genres, including comics, anime, food, and music, and examine the interplay between local and global culturescapes. Students are expected to critically inquire into the reality and complexity of people's lives in Japan as reflected in cultural products and to explore cultural transformation in Japan as a part of the dynamics of globalization. "Common" value and knowledge at the local level is challenged as culture traverses borders. From the expansion of Japanese fan communities to feminist criticism of gender representation, we will employ case studies to overcome our conscious and unconscious exoticism and to deepen our understanding of Japanese culture in the global context. Key questions will include the following: What racial and ethnic relationships/tensions underlie global popular culture? What economic and political factors drive trends? How are gender and sexuality represented?
Subject Area(s): Art/Music, Asians/Asian-Americans, Cultural Sociology, Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems, Race, Class and Gender, Racial and Ethnic Relations
Resource Type(s): Assignment, Syllabus
Class Level(s): College 100, College 200, College 300
Class Size(s): Small