SD373 Cultural Identity-outline

Subject Title: Cultural Identity
Subject Code: SD373
Number of Credits: 3
Year / Semester of Study: Year 2 / Semester 2
Subject Co-ordinator: SIU King Chung
Lecturers: LEUNG Po-shan, Anthony (leungpo@gmail.com )
CHENG Wai-pang (tinywest@gmail.com)
Class room: A104K
Discussion blog: http://sd373-07.blogspot.com/
Pre-requisites: Completed at least one DCT subject
Co-requisites: Nil


Teaching / Learning Activities and Hours Assigned:
6:30-8:30 lecture 8:30 -9:30 tutorial

Teaching & Learning Activities Hours/Week No. of Weeks Time-tabled Hours
Lecture 2 7 14
Presentation 2 7 14
Tutorial 1 14 14
Total Time-tabled Hours 42


Method of Assessment:
Students will be evaluated through tutorial (30%), as well as a final essay (50%) that identifies relevant arguments and offers reflections towards the issues of cultural identity. Quality of class participation, and students’ understanding towards relevant theoretical literature and local phenomenon are assessed in various preliminary research assignments (20%) leading towards their final essay.



Role and Purpose:
This subject deals with the problems of cultural identity in the midst of universal cultural hybridisation and globalisation. The focus is on the imagined “membership” in community formations and the outward signs of the participation, especially the new challenge of cultural economy. Students will discover processes of objects and images appropriation may become means for identity representation and differentiation. Forms of cultural rhetoric are, therefore, explored and analysed with reference to the underpinned values, beliefs and power relations. Special references will be directed to the Hong Kong context

Learning Outcomes:
On successfully completing the subject, students will able to:

 examine and comment upon the problems of cultural identity in the midst of universal cultural hybridization, globalization and localization;
 comprehend theoretical texts and make arguments against the different forms of cultural rhetoric as appear in the scholarly debates;
 make connections with learnt theories and explore critical issues in relation to, say, “the cultural others”, “spaces of identity”, “cultural representation”, etc. in our contemporary world;
 identify and analyze the underpinnings (e.g. values, beliefs and power relations) behind the outward signs of cultural representation or the imagined “membership” of certain communities;
 interpret how the processes of objects and images appropriation, (i.e. the processes of design) may become means for identity representation and differentiation;
 research and select local examples in explaining the above understanding through writings, presentations and seminars.
 continue to develop cultural sensitivity in societies of multicultural characters by augmenting knowledge of our own and others’ cultures;
 appreciate the diversity in our society and the world in which we lived and combat stereotype, prejudice and discrimination;
 perform more acute observations and make decision appropriately by making reference to necessary social and cultural conditions in real life settings.

Indicative Content:

Basic Concepts:
- culture, identity and cultural politics

Cultural Manifestations
- representation and art
- cultural intermediary
-visual & Material Culture

Cultural Economy
- basic concepts: identification, representation, production, consumption, regulation
- cultural industry and its critique

Topics in cultural identity
- Politics of cultural identity: self, other, community
- Cultural Memories, Histories and Formation of Culture
- Cultural imaginings: Cultural Identity in Making

Cultural Identity of Hong Kong
- Hong Kong cultural identity- why matters?
- Hong Kong art and its Chineseness
- Culture of everyday life: tourism and shopping mall
- Hong Kong Culture in a space of disappearance
- Cultural identity/ identities of Hong Kong

Global and Local
- urban spectacle, cosmopolitanism, regional identity and globaliztion (TW)

Round-up: a story with no end
From Identity to Subjectivity


Teaching/Learning Approach:
Weekly lecture and tutorial, complemented by students’ presentation; each student is required to apply learnt concepts in thinking, researching and writing about a selected cultural issue from the Hong Kong context. There will be an interim group research project, from which students are required to arrange a formal presentation and derive their own topics for their final essays.

Assignments:
1.Reading Tutorial(30%):
Form into groups of 3 to 4 students and present assigned readings with no more than 2 pages of reading notes (no powerpoint is needed).

2.Preliminary study(20%):
Prepare an interim group research project, from which students are required to arrange a formal presentation.

3.Final essay(50%):
Identify a cultural issue, conduct a research with the learnt concepts and theories, then produce an essay around 2000 words in English.
Deadline: one week after term end.


Content Reader-student
19 Jan Lecture: Introduction (LP) ---
26 Jan L: Cultural Manifestations (LP)
2 Feb L: Cultural Economy I (LP)
T:
Kathryn Woodward ed., “Introduction”, Identity and Difference, Sage: 1997, pp.8-19.
Simon During, “Going global”, Cultural Studies: A Critical Introduction, London: Routledge, pp.5-13. 1.
Yu Chun Ho Ricky 05726506t
Cheng wing hing Jacky 05525468t
Chow kam hung Calvin 05747919t
Lo chi ping Noel 05711911t

9 Feb L: Cultural Economy II (LP)
T: John Fiske, “Communication, Meaning and Signs”, Introduction to Communication Studies, London & New York: Routledge, 1990, pp.39-63.
Poon shui han Kat 05713770t
Wong pui sze Almaz 05706600t
Woo mei yi Joies 05741915t
Ng pui yan Yan 05500357t
蘇國亮 Husso 05528225t

16 Feb Topics in cultural identity (LP)
T:
Chan ho leung Aaron 05738517t
Tsang yuen han 小嫻 05740052t
Wong ping yan Grace 05747846t
Wong hon hing Hing 05515008t

23 Feb Topics in cultural identity (LP)
T:
Cheng lai kuen Brenda 05500100t
Ku chun ching Ching 05742438t
Wong wai hung Ivan 05707370t
Sek wai hong Hong 05516029t

2 Mar Topics in cultural identity (TW)
T:
Kwok ka man Millet 05722821t
Heung pak yan Patsa 05730488t
陳珮瑜 Fa 05514860t
Hui ka man Kim 05703413t

9 Mar Presentation: preliminary study (students) Tbc
16 Mar Presentation: preliminary study (students) Tbc

23 Mar Cultural Identity of Hong Kong (LP)
T:
梁樂衡 Anthony 05502258t
李詩敏 Vivian 05711554t
李逸思 Celicia 05514718t
譚淑美 Me 05507518t

30 Mar Cultural Identity of Hong Kong (LP)
T:
Cheng man yin Chloey 05737011t
潘嘉業 Tom 05745963t
Lau kwok kei Kei 05721295t
Wong Simon

13 April Cultural Identity of Hong Kong (TW)
T:
沈永強 Johnathan 05528145t
Chu Richard 06507448t
Lok Karen 06746460t
Joey

20 April Global and Local (TW)
T:
Chong pui ying Ivy 05737256t
Cheng an na Arna 05739551t
Yeung ying suen Sharon 05528213t
Cham wai pun Chris 05748688t


27 April L: Round-up: a story with no end (TW & LP)
T: Final project consultation



Indicative References (tentative):
馬傑偉 (1999) 香港記憶。次文化堂。pp.85-134
梁文道: “寶貝總是國家的話、眼睛卻是我們的”信報1998年3月4日。
周蕾 "殖民與殖民之間" 載於寫在家國以外牛津大學出版社 1995.p.p. 91 -118
梁秉鈞“雅俗文化之間的文化評論”載於黃淑嫻編 香港文化多面睇 香港藝術中心1997.p.p.3 - 21
馬傑偉 (1996) 電視與文化認同 。 突破出版社 。
羅貴祥“肌肉男人與本土文化身份的建構”載於黃淑嫻編 香港文化多面睇 香港藝術中心1997.p.p.113 - 117
譚萬基“沒有陌生人的世界:佐丹奴的世界地圖”載於陳清僑編 文化想像與意識形態牛津大學出版社1997.p.p. 89 - 102
也斯“文化身份的探索 : 東西視藝”香港文化 香港藝術中心1995.
洛楓 "歷史的記憶與失憶" 載於 世紀末城市 牛津大學出版社 1995. p.p.60 - 75.
Ackbar Abbas (1997) Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance. Hong Kong University Press.
Appadurai, Arjun (1988) "How to make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India". Comparative Study of Society and History 30(1): 3-24
Cheung, Sydney (1996) "Cultural Tourism and Hong Kong Identity", Working Paper no. 4. Department of Anthropology, CUHK 1996 p.p.1 - 21
Chun, Allen (1994) "From Nationalism to Nationalizing: Cultural Imagination and State Formation in Postwar Taiwan" The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 31: 49-69
Clarke,. David (1996) "Between East and West: Negotiation With Tradition and Modernity in Hong Kong Art" in Art and Place: Essays on Art from a Hong Kong Perspective. The Hong Kong University Press.
Ecker, David. (1990) "Cultural Identity, Artistic Empowerment, and the Future of Art in the Schools," Art Education. January/February 1990.
Evans, Grant.& Tam. Maria. (eds.) (1997) Hong Kong: The Anthropology of a Chinese Metropolis. Curzon.
Hall, Stuart et al. (eds.) (1992) "Identity in Question" Modernity and Its Futures. Polity Press & The Open University. p.p. 274-280
Hall, Stuart et al. (eds.) (1992) "National Cultures as 'Imagined Communities' " Modernity and Its Futures. Polity Press & The Open University. p.p. 291-299
Handler, Richard (1988) Nationalism and the Politics of Cultural in Quebec. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Man, Eva K. W. (1996) Experimental Painting and Painting Theories in Colonial Hong Kong 1940-1980: Reflection on Cultural Identity”.(unpublished essay, 1996)
Mathews, Gordon (1997) "Heunggongyahn: On Past Present, and Future of Hong Kong Identity" Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Vol. 29 No. 3, July-September 1997.
Stanley, Nick & Siu, King Chung (1995) "Representing the Past as the Future: The Shenzhen Chinese Folk Culture Villages and the Marketing of Chinese Identity." Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 7, 1995.
Turner, Mathews. (1995)“Dissolving the People” in Turner, M. & Ngan I. (eds.) (1995) Hong Kong Sixties: Designing Identity. Hong Kong Arts Centre. . p.p. 13 -34
Williams, Raymond. (1961) “The Analysis of Culture,” The Long Revolution. NY: Columbia University Press. p.p. 41-53
Woodward, Kathryn (1997) "Why does the Concepts of Identity Matters" in Woodward,