What is culture? How does culture work?

Cultural Studies is an emerging and increasingly influential field of study. It trains students to understand the political dimensions of culture and to examine the ways in which culture is a contested site for conveying different ideologies. Our programme offers a new perspective that helps students to better understand contemporary Chinese and global culture and invites them to engage critically in the study of culture to arrive at a more advanced and sophisticated understanding of power.

We have a broad range of interests. Through close readings of various texts, including films, literature, theatrical performances, popular music, advertisements, space and even the Web, we analyse a diverse range of issues and topics that are related to contemporary culture,such as travel, body politics, modernity, the city, gender, technoscience, consumer culture, visual culture, youth culture, globalisation and cultural policy. We also work closely with the Religious Studies programme to offer a range of courses in culture and religion. In general, we study both elite and popular cultures critically, and our programme cultivates in students an acute cultural sensibility-expertise that is highly valued by many professional sectors of contemporary society.