Pop Junctions: Reflections on Entertainment, Pop Culture, Activism, Media Literacy, Fandom and More.
Reflections on Entertainment, Pop Culture, Activism, Media Literacy, Fandom and More
Cao Xueqin's masterpiece A Dream of Red Mansions is both a model of ancient literature and the subversion of many of the conventions of its literary genre. Today, it is also a popular canon for fan fiction writers on the internet. But where the original work is renowned for its subversive nature, contemporary fan fiction for it most often returns to classic social values.
Read MoreCotton dolls, originally of K-Pop idols, have become a favorite object of high school girls and young office ladies, a totem of "Peter Pan syndrome.” Baudrillard called non-functional goods "gadgets," meaning that they were divorced from practical value and had only symbolic meaning. The practical value of the cotton doll lies precisely in the implementation of the symbolic meaning on the concrete and perceptible material, which forms an interesting contrast with Baudrillard's "gadget."
Read MoreMeet Molly. She was gifted to me during the seven weeks I spent this summer teaching, lecturing, and doing field work on fan culture in China. She is a product readily available at any of the Pop Mart stores in Shanghai. Across this post, I am going to explore some of the different ways we might make sense of Molly as an embodiment of Chinese fan culture.
Read MoreMeet Molly. She was gifted to me during the seven weeks I spent this summer teaching, lecturing, and doing field work on fan culture in China. She is a product readily available at any of the Pop Mart stores in Shanghai. Across this post, I am going to explore some of the different ways we might make sense of Molly as an embodiment of Chinese fan culture.
Read MoreMeet Molly. She was gifted to me during the seven weeks I spent this summer teaching, lecturing, and doing field work on fan culture in China. She is a product readily available at any of the Pop Mart stores in Shanghai. Across this post, I am going to explore some of the different ways we might make sense of Molly as an embodiment of Chinese fan culture.
Read MoreWhile factory workers in China voiced their protest of Covid 19 lockdowns on the street and online, another subtler wave of online protest emerged as humor through the sound of Bollywood. The Chinese Tik Tok Duoyin abounded with videos of Chinese netizens (Internet citizens) singing Jimmy, Jimmy a popular Bollywood song from the 1980s. Jimmy Jimmy, however, is not just any Bollywood song; it was the youth anthem for many soviets and east Europeans in the eighties. This post focuses on three aspects of this event. First, what qualities make a song a protest song? Second, how do we account for the transcultural, trans-linguistic flow of the song, and what does this exchange reveal about the cultural dissemination and absorption of Bollywood in China?
Read MoreThe conflict between liberal arts and STEM majors has been debated in China for the past few decades. The debate reflects a STEM-first education culture in China, which developed because the contemporary education system was modeled after the Soviet Union and focused on the development of industrialization. This situation is quite different from the central role that liberal arts studies played in China’s historical development. The argument that this article is trying to state is not that the STEM major is not worthy of being valued but that both majors should be given similar weight.
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