AP/HREQ 3575 6.00
Popular Culture and Human Rights, East and West
Compares popular culture in reference to critical human rights, virtues and duties in the Western world, including movies, television, literature, animated films and sports with media in China and Japan. Explores modern and ancient cultural forms in relation to religion, philosophy and the self.
Contrasts themes of duty, rights and virtues embedded within popular culture in Western and Eastern civilizations. Moves from clichés of everyday experiences to their essences. Movies, literature and animated films are sites for students to explore Eastern and Western civilizations blended together in a global age. Canada produces cartoon series such as the Chinese classic Journey to the West. Miyazaki Hayao's animation films Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away combine Western style action with Confucian duties and virtues, Buddhist cosmology and Shinto rites of purity. In Eastern Standard Time, Jeff Yang explains Asian martial arts, films, Zen and Daoism as they interact with Western popular culture. The films and literatures surrounding Chushingura (Treasury of Loyal Retainers), Shinobi, Basilisk, Ninja Scroll, Mulan, Hero, Zhuangzi Speaks, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are philosophical examples of duty, rights, virtues and Dao as they disclose the cosmologies of samurai warriors and China's ancient Wuxia knights. In the Western arena, the sages and leaders stand at the forefront of most events as Super-Heroes acting bravely with wit and incredible skill to save the world. In the East Asian arena, the sages and leaders disappear in the midst of time's passing while vanishing into things around them as the world sinks into oblivion.
Course credit exclusion: AP/SOSC 3575 6.00; AP/REI 3575 6.00 (prior to Fall 2013); AK/SOSC 3575 6.00 (prior to Fall 2009).