Inter-asia Cultural Studies 

About: Inter-asia Cultural Studies is an academic journal published by Routledge. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Politics & China. It has an ISSN identifier of 1464-9373. Over the lifetime, 972 publications have been published receiving 8875 citations. The journal is also known as: Movements.

The 'Bollywoodization' of the Indian cinema: cultural nationalism in a global arena

Abstract: (2003). The 'Bollywoodization' of the Indian cinema: cultural nationalism in a global arena. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 25-39.

Conceptualizing an East Asian popular culture

Abstract: Since the 1980s, popular cultural products have criss‐crossed the national borders of East Asian countries, enabling a discursive construction of an ‘East Asian Popular Culture’ as an object of analysis. The present essay is a preliminary attempt to provide some conceptual and analytic shape to this object, delineated by its three constitutive elements of production, distribution and consumption. Each East Asian location participates in different and unequal levels in each of these component processes. Production can either be located entirely in a single geographic location or, alternatively, each of the necessary constituent sub‐processes can be executed from different locations; preference for either arrangement tends to reflect the relative dominance of the production location in exporting its finished products. Consumption and thus consumers are geographically located within cultural spaces in which they are embedded. Meanings and viewing pleasures are generated within the local cultures of specific ...

College rank and neo‐liberal subjectivity in South Korea: the burden of self‐development

Abstract: This paper explores the ways in which contemporary college students in South Korea inhabit new discourses of human development in the context of South Korea’s neo‐liberal turn and globalization. By using ethnographic methods, we examine the lives of college students across three campuses, a top‐tier private school and two mid‐tier schools. The college students who we introduce all aspire to and accept the burden of managing their personal formation for a changing world. We note that the individuated way in which they narrate and take responsibility for their circumstances and predicaments is quite new and resonant with discussions of neo‐liberal subjectivity. We show, however, how the burden of self‐development is borne variously, according to differences in the ‘brand capital’ of the students’ university, gender, and family background. We argue that neo‐liberal subjectivity, highlighting personal ability, style, and responsibility, works to obscure escalating structural inequality in South Korea.

Between the public intellectual and the scholar: decolonization and some post-independence initiatives in African higher education

Abstract: This article focuses on epistemological decolonization, including knowledge production and its institutional locus – the university – in the post-independence African context. The article begins by problematizing both the concept and the institutional history of the university, in its European and African contexts, to underline the specifically modern character of the university as we know it and its genesis in post-Renaissance Europe. Against this background, the article traces post-independence reform of universities in Africa, which is unfolding in two waves: the first on access, Africanization, generating a debate between rights and justice; and the second on institutional reform, epitomized by the debate around disciplinarity. At the same time, the notions of excellence and relevance have functioned as code words, each signaling a different trajectory in the historical development of the university. Lastly, the article explores the role and tension between the public intellectual and the scho...

Imaged and imagined threat to the nation: the media construction of the ‘foreign brides' phenomenon’ as social problems in Taiwan

Abstract: By analyzing the media construction of the ‘foreign brides phenomenon,’ this paper examines ‘what’ is described in the media, ‘how’ it is constructed, and ‘why’ this construction seems believable in Taiwan. Based on the narrative analysis of the media reports of the ‘foreign brides’ phenomenon, this paper argues that ‘social problems’ are products of ‘interpretative work’ accomplished by various effective narrative strategies, including overlapping media coverage, authorizing description, fabricated statistics and equivocal wording, and collaboration with governmental agencies. The Taiwanese media construct the ‘foreign brides phenomenon’ as a social problem. The brides are portrayed either as passive victims or materialist gold‐diggers, and prone to committing crimes, while the bridegrooms are portrayed as the ‘socially undesirable,’ including physically or mentally disabled, and morally inferior. Personal interaction with media workers helps deepen the analysis into the dynamic process of media...