Chinese Popular Musics in Dialogue
MIT OpenCourseWare's survey of popular music across the Chinese-speaking world, moving from Shanghainese shidaiqu of the 1930s through Cantopop to Taiwanese rap. Rather than treating Chinese popular music as one tradition, the course tracks how these genres diverge across regions and eras while still connecting audiences across borders. Materials include sound recordings, music videos, films, and other multimedia sources, paired with readings on how popular music shapes artist and audience identity and carries social and political meaning. The course asks what, if anything, makes this music distinctly Chinese, and how it lets artists articulate conflicting values while still building shared listening communities. Free to access through MIT OpenCourseWare, with the same syllabus, materials, and reading list used in MIT's own classroom, though no certificate is offered.