文化產業、創意產業，或文化創意產業等詞彙自2000年以來風行全球。然而，何謂文創？藝術、傳播、時尚、手工藝、設計、建築、資訊科技，都可以是文創事業；政策與市民行動在無所不包的文化和創意領域，似乎都能找到著力點。文化創意產業成了一個內容曖昧的場域，但其無所不在也意味著，圍繞文化和創意的經濟活動，已然是理解當代社會的關鍵面向。

「文化創意產業專題」不會教人如何創業，也不會深入探索特定產業的商業模式。這門課希望讓大家理解的是文創產業浮現的歷史性社會脈絡，以及能據以檢視並分析文創產業此一現象的批判視角。通過文本閱讀和討論，課堂首先回顧文創過去20年的發展進程，掌握文創產業的國際和本地脈絡。接著，我們會聚焦討論文化經濟（cultural economy）的運作機制，從契約理論、場域的自主性、商品化以及勞動等面向去掌握其運作過程。學期最後，我們也會將討論拉到具體的地方／城市，凸顯文化創意產業的運作總是仰賴並受到實質空間的中介，創意群聚就是明顯例子。然而，城市不只是文創鑲嵌的所在，它也經常期待文創扮演經濟之外的社會性角色。這類理想如何不斷被召喚卻也不斷遇到挫折，將為這門課收尾，有興趣的同學則能循此線索繼續探詢文化與創意之於城市場域的關係。

這門課希望讓同學跳脫狹義的文創產業思考，理解所謂文化與創意的核心價值仍在於人。任何事業或經濟勞動過程因而都有文化與創意的成分存在，如何讓勞動環境能夠支撐人類創造潛能的發揮，因而會是更根本的課題。為此，這門課會要求修課學生以文化創意工作者之於文化經濟的關係為主要命題，撰寫一份期末報告。比如，工作者如何平衡創作與穩定收入、特定的創意勞動如何鑲嵌於特殊的地方或社會關係等。


The term ‘cultural and creative industries’ (CCI) became trendy worldwide at the turn of 21st century. The vagueness of CCI however is as prominent as its popularity. From art, communication, fashion, handicrafts to design, architecture, information technology and so on, CCI is able to occupy some role or another. This haziness easily integrates with both top-down policy initiated by the state and bottom-up civic actions, which then renders CCI an even more ambiguous field.

Given the growing extent of CCI, this course will not be delving into specific industries and will not be teaching students how to launch their own cultural and creative businesses. Rather, the aim will be to familiarize students with the contexts CCI emerge, and to cultivate their ability of analyzing the industries or the so-called cultural and creative economy in question. This orientation of the course is to make sure that students can identity the inner logic of the business or CCI they feel interested, rather than getting carried away by anesthetized discourses.

In the course, we will firstly review the overall development of CCI since the early 2000. As two decades have already passed, critical studies examining the effects and future trajectories of CCI are available. Students can quickly gain a whole picture of CCI at both global and local levels through these readings. Afterwards, we explore how CCI actually works. Cultural economy will be at the core of this set of discussion. Students will be introduced to different aspects inherent to the mechanism of cultural economy. From contract theory and the tensioned balance between creativity vis-à-vis standardization, to the reproduction of symbolic capital, the production and consumption of symbolic commodities, and the often neglected working conditions of cultural workers, students will be gradually gaining analytical views that can be applied to assorted cultural and creative businesses. Before the end of the semester, we will discuss the relations between cultural economy and space. Aside from the fact that cultural industries tend to be embedded within the place, the place—often a city that is—also keeps reminding cultural industries to play more than economic role, but a social one. How this ideal is constantly failed but repetitively evoked will end our discussion of CCI, leaving the students clues to follow if they want to dig further.

Through this course students are expected to think beyond the narrow definition of art and cultural industries, and to recognize the fact that the value of humanity—prominently exemplified as creativity—is inherent in any businesses. What is important is therefore to build industries or working environment that is more wholesome and less alienated. Students will therefore be required to write a paper pivoting on a cultural or creative worker. They will have to record the worker’ s experiences of cultural economy, such as how they tackle risks, balance innovative attempts and stable income, and how they are associated with certain places, clusters or social networks.