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Music 78A (4 units) (Fulfills UCI GE Requirement VII or UCI Breadth Requirement VII-A)
African-American music has been one of the most powerful forces influencing Asian youth culture during the past three decades. Jazz permeates much of the general environment in Asia; Tokyo has more jazz performance venues than any other city in the world. A new generation of Asian jazz musicians, synthesizing their own indigenous cultural traditions with African-American performance techniques, is giving rise to distinctive musical styles. Explore the basic musical elements of jazz from a methodological as well as historical perspective as well as the basic cultural underpinnings of African music and its eventual transformation in North America. Historical figures of jazz are examined, and their basic musical tenets and methods are juxtaposed with current trends in modern Asian jazz. Instructor: Kei Akagi, pianist and composer, UCI Professor of Music
Cross Listed: Choose Comparative Literature 141, East Asian Languages and Literatures 160 (Fulfills UCI GE Requirement VIII or UCI Breadth Requirement VII-B), Film and Media Studies 160 (fulfills UCI GE Requirement VIII or UCI Breadth Requirement VII-B) or Sociology 159 (4 units)
Students will examine the history and practice of Japanese graphic and animated media, focusing specifically upon the postwar popularity of printed graphic narratives, manga, and the mid-century development of anime, a Japanese genre of animation. We examine the work of graphic artists ranging from classic manga-writers Tezuka Osamu and Hayashi Seiichi to contemporary pop-artists Murakami Takashi and Takano Aya. We also look at major animators such as Oshii Mamoru, Satoshi Kon and Miyazaki Hayao. By examining these artists as well as the major manga and anime serials from the 1950s though today -- such as Astro Boy, Mobile Suit Gundam, Galaxy Express 999, Serial Experiment Lain, and Neon Genesis Evangelion -- we study the shifting contexts of postwar Japan. Also, experience hands-on how animation is created and developed in a weekly studio session. Instructor: Jonathan M. Hall, Departments of Comparative Literature and Film and Media Studies, UCI
Cross Listed: Choose Comparative Literature 142, Anthropology 129 or Sociology 149 (4 units)
Following an historical survey of Tokyo as an early-modern city of networks and subcultures, this course maps Tokyo’s emergence as a global, digital megalopolis. We consider the influence of new forms of transportation and architecture upon the twentieth-century city, the emergence of an “information society” in the mid-century, and the increasing dominance of digital and cybernetic cultures of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Topics examined include Japanese online space, noise music, mobile electronic culture, otaku subcultures, neo-Tokyo within sci-fi and anime imaginaries, and spaces of political resistance. You will join a research group dedicated to the anthropological mapping of one urban sub-center. Class fieldtrips may include visits to the NTT InterCommunication Center, the Mori Urban Institute for the Future, as well as to working class and “unconnected” neighborhoods. Instructor: Jonathan M. Hall, Departments of Comparative Literature and Film and Media Studies at UCI
Music 147 (4 units)
Students will learn and experience the techniques of music production made possible by modern technology, including digital recording, MIDI, and digital mixing, editing, and sound processing. Classes will consist of technical demonstrations, analysis of production decisions in recordings, drawing from current musical trends in Japan and development of original music projects (recorded songs, compositions, and/or music videos). Instruction and practical projects will be carried out in state-of-the-art facilities using industry standard software (e.g. Pro Tools). Instructor: Christopher Dobrian, UCI Professor of Music and composer of instrumental and electronic music.
