Popular Culture in Asia Memory, City, Celebrity

Popular Culture of Asia consists of studies of film, music, architecture, television, and computer-mediated communication in China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore. The book explores signs of modernity as they are articulated in East Asian popular cultural products and reception in their varying contexts, including relationships to American culture and society. Contributors are Ian Morley on internationalized trends in urban architecture, Romit Dasgupta on the regional urban modernity represented in the film About Love, Azizah Hamzah and Md Azalanshah Md Syed on urban Malaysian women's reception of soap opera, Hong Zhang on Internet celebrities in China, Shzr Ee Tan on the reception of Faye Wong, Lin Wei-hsin on the music and star persona of Jay Chou, Sueyoung Park-Primiano on South Korean political satires, Talitha Espiritu on Philippine cinema and the legacy of the Marcos regime, and Lorna Fitzsimmons on The Burmese Harp.

LORNA FITZSIMMONS is an associate professor and Coordinator of the Humanities Program at California State University, Dominguez Hills, Los Angeles.

JOHN A. LENT is publisher and editor of the International Journal of Comic Art, Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania.

Introduction; L.Fitzsimmons
PART I: MEMORY
Engaging the Valley of Death: The Dialogue with Modernity in The Burmese Harp; L.Fitzsimmons
National Allegory, Modernization, and the Cinematic Patrimony of the Marcos Regime; T.Espiritu
Censorship and the Unfinished Past: Political Satire in Contemporary South Korean Cinema; S.Park-Primiano
PART II: CITY
Modernizing the Urban Landscape: Architecture and the Internationalized Face of Asia; I.Morley
Romancing Urban Modernity in Tokyo, Taipei, and Shanghai: The Film About Love and the Shaping of a Discursive East Asian Popular Culture; R.Dasgupta
Imagining Modernity in Contemporary Malaysia: Non-Western Soap Opera and the Negative Urban Morality; A.Hamzah & M.Azalanshah Md Syed
PART III: CELEBRITY
Gender Reconstruction in Post-Mao Urban China: The Interplay between Modernity and Popular Culture; H.Zhang
Beyond the 'Fragile Woman': Identity, Modernity, and Musical Gay Icons in Overseas Chinese Communities; S.Ee Tan
Jay Chou's Music and the Shaping of Popular Culture in China; W-H.Lin
Index