MALCS Intensive Summer Course

COPYCAT CHINA, CREATIVE CHINA

This intensive course investigates how China attempts to upgrade its economy by moving from the copycat, or in Chinese, shanzhai (山寨), to creativity and innovation in the 21st century. To grasp the multifaceted meanings of shanzhai – original versus copy, real versus fake, the image economy, new media, class relation and hierarchy, social structure, and transnational capitalism – we will engage with realism as an intellectual problem. In the first part of the course, we will examine various copycat objects – for example, knockoff Louis Vuitton/Prada handbags (fashion), counterfeit iPhones (cell phones and digital technologies), reproductions of Van Gogh’s paintings (art), imitations of European towns (architecture), and impersonations of historical figures (performance) – within the cross-cultural scenario. We are interested in how the fake, counterfeit, and knockoff can offer an alternative space to explore the cultural politics of postmodernity, globalization, and transnationality within the Chinese setting. In the second part of the course, we will explore the rapid development of Shenzhen in the “Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area." We are also interested in the social debates concerning technological innovation and artificial intelligence in China and the United States.

About the Course Instructor

COURSE INSTRUCTOR

PROF. CALVIN HUI

Calvin Hui is Class of 1952 Distinguished Associate Professor of Modern Languages & Literatures at the College of William & Mary in the United States. His book, titled The Art of Useless: Fashion, Media, and Consumer Culture in Contemporary China, was published by Columbia University Press in 2021. This project was supported by an American Council of Learned Societies fellowship. Hui has recently received a China – U.S. Scholars Program Fellowship.