From West to East and back again, an Arts & Sciences course uses pop culture and food to examine East Asia and globalization.
What do K-pop music and McDonald’s restaurants have in common? Not much, actually. But these iconic institutions are great entry points into the study of modern East Asian culture.
In “From McDonald’s to K-pop: New Movements in East Asia,” students explore values in East Asian societies as well as how pop culture moves within the region and around the world, from West to East and back again.
“I wanted to introduce East Asia to American students a little bit more creatively,” says Linling Gao-Miles, senior lecturer in the Global Studies Program in Arts & Sciences. “They are familiar with anime, sushi, K-pop, ramen, Hello Kitty, McDonald’s. So, we use those references to explore East Asia and transnational cultural flows.”
For example, K-pop was influenced by international genres, including J-pop from Japan and hip-hop, while incorporating aspects of traditional Korean music. Using K-pop, students examine a key theme of the course: the relationship between local cultural phenomena and the complex process of globalization.