Sample Syllabus
Course Description
This course explores the ways the “digital” is articulated in Asia. What is the digital and its relation to media? How is digital media imagined in different cultures? How does digital media influence the ways we imagine a place, people, and the cultures there? We will examine the implications of what it means to live in a digital world surrounded by different forms of media and how such media inspires community participation. Looking at cases of digitally produced media, including literature, cinema, and news from different locations, such as China and South Korea among others, this course explores the intersection of media with issues of democracy, censorship, political activism, and cultural negotiation.
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
1. Engage critically with the various forms of media and understand the contexts in which they emerge.
2. Productively use media and different online platforms to articulate their ideas and curate their own work as an online portfolio.
3. Reflect constructively about their own media output and how it intersects with politics, society, and culture.
4. Discuss actively and produce substantive responses to questions about the interconnections between media, politics, and culture.
Student Requirements
Preparation and Participation
Much of the class will consist of group discussion with a small lecture component. The students are tasked with coming to class on time ready to discuss the material in an in-depth way and to demonstrate their preparedness by having completed the scheduled readings and viewings. Laptops are permitted in class, but please avoid doing things that will distract you and your classmates from the course material.
Discussion Facilitation
Each student will be required to facilitate the discussion for one of the readings for the first 15-20 minutes of class. This includes prompting your peers to participate in the discussion by having questions prepared for the class. The discussion facilitator should actively listen and respond to their classmates to progress the discussion. Facilitators do not have to cover every point in the reading or screening, but they should cover what they determine are essential points to our on-going themes in class. The instructor will help you to facilitate the discussion if necessary. You are invited to use different presentation platforms, but they are not mandatory for the assignment.
Project: An Archive of One’s Own
This assignment requires you to reflect on your own engagement with digital media and explore news ways to curate your online presence. Please see the assignment sheet for more information.
Course Schedule
Week 1: Course Introduction
Session 1: Course Introduction
Reading: Jerome McGann “The Rational of Hypertext”
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/public/jjm2f/rationale.html
Kuan-Hsing Chen, “Introduction: Globalization and Deimperialization” in Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization, pp. 1-17. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010.
Session 2: What is the digital? What is Asia?
Reading: Marshall Mcluhan, “The Medium is the Message,” in Understanding Media: The
Extensions of Man, pp. 1-21. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994.
Viewing: Al Jazeera English, “Marshall Mcluhan- Digital Prophecies: The Medium is the
Message.” (2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09ML9n5f1fE
BBC Radio 4, “The Medium is the Message.” (2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko6J9v1C9zE
Week 2: Working with Media
Session 1: What is the medium/ What is media?
Facilitator:
Assignment: Make a Scalar account http://www.scalar.usc.edu, read through the Scalar User
Guide, and view the course’s Scalar how-tos here. Browse the Scalar platform and view two books from the index. Come prepared to discuss what you saw in the Scalar books you viewed.
Session 2: Scalar Workshop + Technical Skill Sharing/ Explanation of Assignment
Reading: Li, Luzhou Nina. “Rethinking the Chinese Internet: Social History, Cultural Forms, and
Industrial Formation.” Television & New Media, vol. 18, no. 5, 2017, pp. 393–409.
Viewing: TED, “Michael Anti: Behind the Great Firewall of China.” (2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrcaHGqTqHk
Shosh Shlam (dir.), Web Junkie. 2013.
Week 3: Digital Articulations in Asia - China and Hong Kong
Session 1: Dealing with China’s Great Firewall and Connectivity
Facilitator:
Reading: Stan Hok-Wui Wong, “Elephant Versus Termites: Lessons from Hong Kong” in Electoral
Politics in Post-1997 Hong Kong, pp.149-162. Springer eBooks. (2015).
Viewing: Joe Piscatella, Teenager vs. Superpower. (2017)
Session 2: Protests in Hong Kong Media
Facilitator:
Reading: Kang, Inkyu. "Technology, Culture, and Meanings: How the Discourses of Progress and
Modernity Have Shaped South Korea’s Internet Diffusion." Media, Culture & Society 39, no. 5 (2017): 727-39.
Kim Bo Young, “Between Zero and One,” translated by Eunhae Jo and Melissa Chan in Ready-Made Bodhisattva and Other Science Fiction Stories from South Korea, Sunyoung Park ed., Los Angeles: Kaya Press, 2018.
Week 4: Digital Articulations in Asia - South Korea and India
Session 1: Can we build a time-machine in South Korea?
Facilitator:
Reading: Rachel Jolley, “India Calling” in Digital Activism Asia: The Revolution Will Not Be
Tweeted, Nishat Shah, Puthiya Purail Sneha, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay eds., pp. 106-111. Luneberg: Meson Press, 2015.
Viewing: Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla (dir.), An Insignificant Man, 2017.
Session 2: India and Media Revolutions
Facilitator:
Assignment: Review your social media output and websites for your assignment. You can use your existing social media accounts or create new ones and populate it with material.
Week 5: Final Project Discussion + Scalar Book Construction