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CS92PROD
Popular Music in Reform China
MUSC 127
Spring 2019
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: CEAS 259

Understand the emotional aspect of reform China and the inner feelings of contemporary Chinese people through the country's popular music! How did "red songs" from the cultural revolution become popular songs in the 21st century? How did an "extremely soft and feminine" voice threaten the Chinese Communist Party? Why do songs from the "jazz capital of the Orient" trigger nostalgia? How do underground rock and punk bands negotiate their existence? How is rap in China different from that of the U.S. or anywhere else? How do Chinese artists deal with (trans)gender issues and ethnic minority issues in popular music? What future is there for China's burgeoning "network songs"? Popular music in reform China presents unique issues of state-sponsored popular culture intersecting with bottom-up popular taste and desire; the repressive collective "we" intersecting with the resilient individual "I" in artistic expressions; and the imagined "ancient China" intersecting with contemporary sound and technology. This course offers students opportunities to explore aesthetic, political, and cultural meanings expressed in China's popular music from the 1980s to the present.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA MUSC
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (CEAS-MN)(CEAS)(CEAS-Lit&Cult)(MUSC)
Past Enrollment Probability: 90% or above

Last Updated on MAR-28-2024
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