Asian Arts: Networks and Hubs

This subject investigates the political, social and cultural significance of the arts in contemporary Asia. Throughout Asia, visual and performing arts function as entertainment, communicative medium, commodity, religious ritual, political act and as sites for social conflict and accord. Diverse genres are examined as local, national, and transnational phenomena, which play key roles in the construction of individual and collective identities. Notions of the ‘traditional’ and the ‘contemporary’ are investigated and students become familiar with different analytical and aesthetic approaches to the study of the arts as social phenomena that can break down as well as create social barriers, national borders, and urban-regional divides.