Summer 2017: GEG1040 Hong Kong Popular Culture

This module aims to broaden students’ knowledge, understanding and appreciation of Hong Kong popular culture in its broader social and historical contexts. Moving outwards from thematic case studies of the origins and development of five areas of Hong Kong popular culture, students will explore broader debates on popular culture in a global context. Are Hong Kong people victims of ‘cultural imperialism’ - primarily consumers of imported Western and East Asian culture, whose own popular culture industries are characterized by reproduction and imitation of Western and products? Or are Hong Kong people active consumers and producers who have crafted their own distinctive popular culture from global, regional and local elements, such that Hong Kong has now become a hub for ‘transnational flows’ of popular culture across the world? What has Hong Kong popular culture contributed to a sense of Hong Kong identity and the representation of this identity in East Asia and the West?