Brief introduction

1. What is cultural studies?
1.1. Cultural studies is not studies of some given objects called culture.
1.2. Cultural studies is ... ...

A field of knowledge about the process constitutive of and constituted by lived experience in everyday life.

1.3. Cultural studies is a pair of looking glasses... ... They help us understand the constitutive and constituted processes.

2. Example: Public examination in Hong Kong

2.1. Experience of examination:
*Why do we only care much more about the result than the process?
*How do students live through this process (F4-F7)?

-Oral history of student
-Life in school, "education centre" and self-study.
-Youth culture and examination

2.2. Media coverage constituted by experience
-Why do we call those students with 8-10 A grades as "Zhuangyuan" (狀元)?
-"Zhuangyuan" is a metaphor for expressing people's feeling, expectation and fantasy about education.

2.3. Institution
-Examination is not simply about the regulation or grading system.
-Examination is a culture in our everyday life.

2.4. Recommended video clip: Matrixexam
-Trailer
-Episode I

3. Cultural analysis and conventional wisdom

3.1. Putting conventional wisdom into questions

3.2. In-depth understanding of human world

3.3. Challenging "the Establishment" and generating alternative practices

3.4. Cultural sensitivity and thinking

4. How to cultivate cultural sensitivity and thinking?
4.1. Reading books, daily news, magazine and novel
4.2. Watching movies, TV program, ... ...
4.3. Wandering around bookstores (Not only 商務 and 大眾)
4.4. Exposed to new experiences in varied communities
4.5. Engaging in cultural practices (writing cultural criticism, making independent movies, organizing exhibition or activities, ... ...)
4.6. DO NOT take everything for granted
4.7. DO NOT believe in conventional wisdom

Reading for next week:
Storey, John 2001. "What is Popular Culture." Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: AnIntroduction. NY: Prentice Hall, 1-15.