the martial arts genre Fox Volant and One Armed Swordsman or Popular Romance (Comrades: Almost a Love Story, Two Stars, Laborer’s Love)

1) Compare and contrast two texts of the same genre; i.e. the martial arts genre Fox Volant and One Armed Swordsman or Popular Romance (Comrades: Almost a Love Story, Two Stars, Laborer’s Love), etc.

2) The image of the father; father-daughter/father-son relations. (Two Stars, The Goddess, Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, Dream of Ding Village )

3) The image of the orphan (Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, San Mao, Lei Feng, The One Armed Swordsmam).

4) China’s transition (i.e tradition to modernity, Socialism to Capitalism, the local to the global etc.) through Popular Culture (Orphan on the Streets, Two Stars, Dream of Ding Village, My fight for a New Taiwan, Songs of Cui Jian, etc.)

5) Chinese serial pictures, what distinguishes them from their western counterparts? (San mao, Lei Feng, Red Detachment)

6) Using the book Blocked on Weibo as a starting point, analyze one specific aspect of Chinese web culture (blogs, Weibo, sina.com, Google in China, etc.) vis-à-vis the topic of censorship.

7) Do a traditional literary or film analysis of one of the novels or films examined in Class (Dreams of Ding Village, Fox Volant, Two Stars, Happy Together, etc.).

8) Explore one aspect of Wong Kar Wai’s work, i.e. sound, color, editing, art design, music, fashion, etc.