J-pop and Beyond: Japanese Popular Culture in the Transnational Context

J-pop and Beyond: Japanese Popular Culture in the Transnational Context is a Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies course taught by Junko Oba.

Course Description
This course examines Japanese popular culture as a transnational phenomenon, whose development and dissemination occur, and influence permeates beyond conventional national cultural boundaries. The course looks into the regional cultural matrix of East and Southeast Asia with Japan as its integral part, and the cultural dimension of globalization and its changing dynamics against the backdrop of Asia?s growing economy. Topics include J-pop and other popular musics from the region, manga (comic books), anime (Japanese animated films), films, computer games, theatre, fashion trends. Each student will present analysis of the course materials during discussions and a final project on a particular topic relevant to this course.