Karaoke Custom Essay

EALC E110 Popular Culture of East Asia
Spring 2014
Paper Assignment

You are required to write a five-to-six page paper, in twelve-pt. Times-Roman font, with one-inch margins at top and bottom and 1.25 inches left and right. The paper should be double spaced, including

between paragraphs (no extra spaces between paragraphs). No cover sheet is required on the paper: simply indicate your name and the class name and date in the first two lines at the top of the paper. The

next line down should contain the title of your paper. Following that, the text should begin. NOTE: A title is required!

Proper quotation and citation (of references to ideas, words, quotations, and significant information found in someone else’s writing) are required. Citations will be done in the parenthetical style (author/s, title,

date, page).
A bibliography (in Chicago Manual of Style) must accompany the paper for any sources used that are not part of the assigned readings.
YOU WILL TURN PAPER IN IN HARD COPY AND THROUGH “TURN IT IN.COM”

Paper Topics: This is not a research paper, in the sense that you go out and search independently for sources. Rather, we will provide “topics readings” on two different cultural forms (cultural products),

karaoke and Chinese food, from which you choose one about which to write. Your task is to do the extra “topic readings” provided and combine these with the appropriate readings from the course we have

already done. You will in part be evaluated on your intelligent use of the entire range of readings.

You must write about the cultural form you have chosen as an example of popular culture, making sure to discuss whatever conceptual ideas we have been using in class that you feel are appropriate to

understanding 1) what makes your topic “popular culture”; 2) how the cultural form “operates” in the East Asian and global contexts (that is, how it is produced, consumed, understood, received, changed in

meaning or use, and by whom, etc.). Examples of potentially relevant conceptual issues we have explored include conventional attempts to “nationalize” culture, personal identity, subcultures, cultural

supermarket idea, authenticity debates, mass-media saturation, etc. You might also consider how the cultural form has changed over time in the context in which you are writing about it.