Globalization has given rise to the rapid development of contemporary cities and a drastic transformation of cultural landscapes. The way in which we understand the complexity of changing urban landscapes in relation to modern life therefore has become a pressing social issue. Urban transformation not only involves the reproduction and reorganization of space and geographies but also has implications on the redistribution of capital and resources in the global capitalist economy, thereby contributing to new modes of production and reproduction of labor. In the face of newly emergent subjects and subject formations brought about by the modern transformation of urban landscapes, how do we critically reflect on the tension between capitalist development and the subjective perceptions of urban experience? What kinds of cityscapes and lifestyles are ideal? How do we re-imagine the connections between human experience and the city in a way that is not confined to the modern rationality of urban planning? Through critical reflection on the dialectics between urban transformation and East Asian cultural formation, this course will allow students to engage critically with the power relations between society, culture and space, and encourages alternative imaginaries of our urban life.
Focusing on the cities of Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei, this course draws on cultural geography to explore the intricacy of urban development and cultural representations in East Asia. In addition to established theories and debates in urban studies, students will read political-economic accounts of the recent development of these five East Asian cities, as well as artistic representations of them. Students will be required to address the discrepancies between these two ways of reading cities and explore the mechanics of these two separate strands of articulation.