Routledge Handbook of East Asian Popular Culture

Since the 1990s there has been a dramatic increase in cultural flows and connections between the countries in the East Asian region. Nowhere is this more apparent than when looking at popular culture where uneven but multilateral exchanges of Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Hong Kong and Chinese products have led to the construction of an ‘East Asian Popular Culture’. This is both influenced by, and in turn influences, the national cultures, and generates transnational co-production and reinvention. As East Asian popular culture becomes a global force, it is increasingly important for us to understand the characteristics of contemporary East Asian popular culture, and in particular its transnational nature. In this handbook, the contributors theorize East Asian experiences and reconsider Western theories on cultural globalization to provide a cutting-edge overview of this global phenomenon.The Routledge Handbook of East Asian Popular Culture will be of great interest to students and scholars of a wide range of disciplines, including: Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Communication Studies, Anthropology, Sociology and Asian Studies in general.

Introduction: Critical approaches to East Asian pop culturePart I: Historicization and Spatialization of East Asian pop culture1. Historicizing East Asian Pop Culture,2. East Asian popular culture and inter-Asian referencing3. Hybridity, Korean Wave and Asian Media4. Been informal and formal cultural economy: Chinese subtitle groups and flexible accumulation in the age of online viewing5. Digital Diaspora, Mobility and HomePart II: The development of national production and its regional circulation/connection6. Films6a. Ways of S. Korean Cinema: Phantom, Trans –Cinema and Korean Blockbusters6b. Welcome to Chollywood: Chinese Language Cinema as a Transborder Assemblage6c. Globalism, New Media, and Cinematically Imagining the Inescapable Japan7. TV dramas7a. Bordercrossing, Local Modification and Transnational Transaction of TV Dramas in East Asia7b. Confucian Heroes in Popular Asian Dramas in the Age of Capitalism8. Pop Music8a. K-pop, the Sound of Subaltern Cosmopolitanism? 8b. The legendary live venues and the changing music scenes in Taipei and Beijing: Underworld and D22 9. Social media and popular activism 9a. Social Media and Popular Activism in a Korean Context9b. Mobilizing Discontent: Social Media and Networked Activism since the Great East Japan Earthquake9c. Social media in China: between an emerging civil society and commercializationView III: Gender. Sexuality and Asian celebrity10. East Asian stars, - public space and star studies11. Ribbons and Frills: Shojo Sensibility and the Transnational Imaginary12. Queer Pop Culture in the Sinophone Mediasphere13. Male and Female Idols of the Chinese Pornosphere14. Soft, Smooth with Chocolate Abs: Performance of a Korean Masculinity in Taiwanese Men’s FashionPart IV: Politics of the commons15. Shanzhai culture, Dafen art and Copyrights16. Regional soft power/creative industries competition17. Popular Culture and Historical Memories of War in Asia18. Film Festivals and Regional Cosmopolitanism in East Asia: the case of Busan International Film Festival19. Trans-East-Asia as method

Koichi Iwabuchi is aProfessor & Director of Monash Asia Institute, Monash University, Australia.Eva Tsai is an Associate Professor at National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan. Chris Berry is a Professor of Film Studies at King's College London, UK.