Schedule


1.      Intro and context - Monday 7th November: 2-3.50pm

2.      Consumption and celebrity industry - Monday 7th November: 6-7:50pm

3.      Celebrity culture and fandoms - Tuesday 8th November: 10-11:50am

4.      Internet celebrity and live-streaming - Tuesday 8th November: 6-7:50pm

5.      Cyber nationalism and wolf warriors - Wednesday 9th November: 10-11:50am

6.      Rap music and the underground - Wednesday 9th November: 6-7:50pm

7.      Football culture: Ultras and ‘fake fans’ - Thursday 10th November: 2-3.50pm

8.      Sex, sexuality and gender - Thursday 10th November: 6-7:50pm

9.      Assessment: Group presentations - Friday 11th November: 12-1:50pm

10.  Wrap up - Friday 11th November: 4-5.50pm

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Content


1.      Intro and context

This session covers the social, political and economic context in which all other topics covered in
the module take place. It will explore how the transition to market socialism and partial retreat
of the state have created a freer, more individualistic and wealthier society, but also one in
which the decline of socialist ideology and collectivist ways of life and previous certainties in
the organization of life have affected attitudes and behaviours. The lecture will establish the
socio-political parameters in which social expression and lifestyles are experienced, survey key
processes such as urbanization and migration, and introduce concepts such as “liquid modernity” to
help explain people’s responses. It will discuss the attitudes and behaviours of the cohorts who
were born under the “one child policy” and during China’s economic take-off. It identifies the
concerns, lifestyles and aspirations of the post-80s and post-90s generation and the implications
for Chinese society.


2.       Consumption and celebrity industry


This lecture explores consumption patterns in post-reform China, discussing how greater wealth has
changed attitudes toward material well-being, spending habits and lifestyles. It situates
consumption within the broader context of the transition to market socialism, changing social
attitudes and commercialization of the media and emergence of the internet. It introduces
frameworks for understanding celebrity in contemporary culture and shows how different elements of
the celebrity industry in China work. It demonstrates how the state controls and uses celebrity to
advance its own agenda of promoting modernity, traditional values and patriotism.


3.      Celebrity culture & fandoms

This lecture explores the forms that celebrity culture takes in China, how fandoms have emerged in
response to the growth of the celebrity industry and the internet, and the motivations for
celebrity fandoms in China. It introduces general theoretical frameworks for understanding the role
of celebrity fandom in contemporary societies, and provides comparative counterpoints.


4.      Internet celebrity and live-streaming

This session looks at the rise of a demotic sphere of ‘ordinary celebrity’, influencers and
streamers. It discusses the economics and culture of the wanghong (网红) phenomenon, the media
ecology in which it is embedded and the social effects. It then presents a case study of
livestreaming local officials to show how state and Party actors are adapting to the affordances of
new platforms and participatory digital cultures as part of the reinvention of political
communications.


5.      Cyber nationalism and wolf warriors

This session looks at the connection between popular and cybernationalism, the means of expression
and political influence of this very online, very fervent cohort of mainly young people. It
situates cybernationalists withing the broader sweep of nationalism in China and uses a case study
of “wolf warrior diplomats” to show how cybernationalism intersects with formal diplomatic
communications.


6.      Rap music and the underground

This session looks at the evolution of the rap scene from marginal subculture to the mainstream. It
introduces concepts like cultural appropriation and glocalization to help understand whether there
is such a thing as “Chinese rap”. It will look at how Chinese rappers present and understand
themselves, foregrounding the idea of ‘keeping it real’ and the ‘underground’ and its expression in
through the classical allusion to Jianghu (江湖), the lawless realm outside civilization that
features in much classical literature.


7.      Football culture: Ultras and ‘fake fans’

This session describes the development of football in China, the connection between football and
nationalism and football and violence. It uses transnational fandom and the naturalization of
foreign players as a vehicle for interrogating Chinese attitudes towards foreignness. It looks at
how Chinese people engage with the global game, from ultras to those with a passing interest, and
shows the means by which fans make meaning out of their consumption of football.


8.      Sex, sexuality and gender

This session examines the politics and possibilities of sexuality and gender in Contemporary China.
It explores how the emergence of LGBTQ identities and practices, and feminist activists negotiate
state, market and transnational cultural flows in everyday life, and the various opportunities and
challenges this presents. It looks at how sexual culture in China has changed since the country’s
shift to a more market-based economy. Exploring how new ideas of romance, leisure, and free choice
are redefining ideas of sex in China today, we will also discuss changing attitudes and public
discussions of sex and pornography, and how it is governed by state and market.


9.      Assessment: Group presentations

Assessment will be via a short group presentation, to which all students are expected to contribute
[valid exemptions aside]. Students will be asked to choose a mini-case study related to one of the
session topics and introduce it to the class. The presentation will need to describe what the case
study is, what is special or representative about it, why you choose it, what it illuminates about
the topic and what it says about China. Students are encouraged to use visual imagery, [very] short
video, and other means to supplement their verbal presentation. Further instruction and examples
will be provided during the Intro and context session. Students are encouraged to choose something
that they are really passionate about and interested in – as long as it is related to the areas
covered, anything is acceptable.