here - CDH - EPFL

COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES 

Centre for Area and Cultural Studies (CACS) 

PART 2 

LAUSANNE 

SUMMER 

SCHOOL 2013 

with Specialization 

in East Asia 

South Asia and 

the Middle East 

2013

COLLEGE LAUSANNE OF SUMMER HUMANITIES SCHOOL 

Centre for Area and Cultural Studies (CACS) 

LAUSANNE 

SUMMER SCHOOL 

(HUM-481) 

CACS EPFL 

Lausanne Summer School held during the last three weeks of July is the 

second part of the Minor in Area and Cultural Studies organized by the 

Centre for Area and Cultural Studies (CACS). Students will received 8 ETCS. 

There are various thematic modules presented over the three weeks. Each 

module is under the supervision of an internationally renowned specialist in 

the field. The selected topics are designed for EPFL students, professionally 

and/or personally: they are either related to scientific fields taught at EPFL 

or relevant to the lifestyle of host societies. 

SCHEDULE 

8 - 26 JULY 2013 / 09:00 - 17:00 

CREDITS & REQUIREMENTS 

4 ECTS Active participation in class 

2 ECTS Readings assessement 

2 ECTS Oral or film presentation 

EVALUATION 

40% Oral or film presentation 

40% Reading assignment 

20% Participation in class 

2

LAUSANNE SUMMER SCHOOL 


MODULE I 

POLITICS AND POLICIES 

CHAIR: Hans Peter Hertig 

Coordinator: Christine Lutringer 

LECTURERS 

Rebecca Karl 

East Asian Studies, New York University 

Kapil Raj 

Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris 

Hans Peter Hertig 

Centre for Area and Cultural Studies, EPFL and Weatherhead East-Asian Institute, 

Columbia University, New York 

Roberto CALDERA 

Chair of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Fribourg 

Peter Mollinga 

School of Oriental and Africa Studies, London 

Nadine Reis 

Institute for Social and Development Studies, Munich 

Kaushik Basu 

World Bank, Washington DC and Department of Economics, Cornell University 

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PROGRAMME 

Monday 8 July 

Politics and Ideology 

09:00 > 09:15 Welcome and introduction to the programme 

Florence Graezer Bideau 

09:15 > 09:30 Introduction to module I “Politics and Policies” 


09:30 >12:30 Politics and ideology: the role of Mao in the making of modern China 

Rebecca Karl 

This session will explore what “Maoism in practice” was about, from the perspective 

of what Chinese socialism was trying to achieve in terms of the theoretical and 

practical bases established for an alternative version of modernization from the 

capitalist, Euro-American type or the Soviet socialist type. We will read two chapters 

of my book on Mao and supplement those with some primary documents from the 

Cultural Revolution that took the theories and practices of Maoism to their radical 

extremes. Our attempt will be to understand Chinese socialism in its own terms, 

rather than to condemn it from the retrospective vantages of its supposed failures. 

12:30 >14:00 Lunch with students 

14:00 >16:30 Politics and ideology (continued) 

Rebecca Karl 

16:30 >17:00 Introduction to student presentations 

F. Graezer Bideau, C. Lutringer and I. Vogel Chevroulet 

Compulsory reading 

Karl, R. (2010). “Stabilizing Society and the Transition to Socialism 1949–1957” and “Great Leap and 

Restoration 1958–1965”. In Mao Zedong in the Twentieth-Century World, chapters 6 and 7, Durham and 

London: Duke University Press, pp. 73-98 and 99-116. 

4



Tuesday 9 July 

Science, Technology and Medicines 1 

09:00 >12:30 The cultural context of knowledge production 

Kapil Raj 

Introduction to the different theories of knowledge production (scientism, positivism, 

Popper, Kuhn etc); relativism (sociology of knowledge, feminist studies); 

knowledge and culture (diffusionism, post colonial studies etc). 

12:30 >14:00 Lunch 

14:00 >15:00 Asia as a scientific landscape 


Discussion on the concept of local knowledge; presentation of the CACS research 

project. 

15:00 >16:30 Local science and expertise: 

The Cancer Detectives of Lin Xian 

(documentary, UK, 1981, 57 min.) 

Kapil Raj and Hans Peter Hertig 

Viewing and discussing 

17:30 >19:00 Optional movie: The Missing Star / La stella que non c’è 

(movie by Gianni Amelio, Italy, 2006, 102 min.) 


Finlay, R. (2000). “China, the West, and World History in Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in 

China”. Journal of World History, vol. 11, n° 2, pp. 265–303. 

Sillitoe, P. (2007). “Counting on Local Knowledge”. In Sillitoe P. (ed). Local Science vs Global Science, 

Chapter 13, Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 257-278. 

Optional reading 

Raina, D. (2007). “Science since Independence”. In India 60 Towards a New Paradigm, New Delhi: India 

International Centre, HarperCollins India and The India Today Group, pp. 182–195. 

5



Wednesday 10 July 

Science, Technology and Medicines 2 

09:00 >12.30 The encultured brain 

Hans Peter Hertig and Roberto Caldera 

Discussion of a project on the interrelationship between science and culture recently 

launched by CACS. Presentation of research papers relevant for the project. 

12:30 >14:00 Lunch 

Natural Resources and Environment 1 

14:00 >16:30 Water as a politically contested resources: 

canal irrigation (reform) in India 

Peter Mollinga 

Water is a politically contested resource in Asia, as elsewhere. This introductory 

session on the politics of water in post-Independence India will use Ramachandra 

Guha’s chapter “The Conquest of Nature” as background material. The session will 

address the everyday politics of daily water use, the politics of water policy formulation 

and implementation, federal and international hydropolitics, and, finally, 

how global politics is relevant to water resources management in India. Discussion 

and assignment linked to the video: Tailenders – you have to fight for water rights 

(32 minutes). The Tailenders case will be used to discuss the political economy of 

unequal water distribution in large scale irrigation, and subsequently of irrigation/ 

water resources reform. 


Han, S. and Northoff, G. (2008). “Culture-sensitive neural substrates of human cognition: A transcultural 

neuroimaging approach”. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, n°9, pp. 646–654. 

Guha, R., (2007). “The Conquest of Nature”. In India after Gandhi, chapter 10, Basingstoke and Oxford: 

Macmillan, pp. 209-231. 


Blais, C., Jack, R. E., Scheepers, C., Fiset, D., & Caldara, R. (2008). “Culture shapes how we look at 

faces”. PLoS ONE, vol. 3, n° 8, e3022. 

Jack, R., Garrod, O., Yu, H., Caldara, R., & Schyns, P. G. (2012). “Facial expressions of emotion are not 

culturally universal”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 109, n° 19, pp. 7241-7244. 

Mollinga, P. (forthcoming 2013). “Canal irrigation and the hydrosocial cycle. The morphogenesis of contested 

water control in the Tungabhadra Left Bank Canal, South India”. Geoforum. (The Special issue 

will appear in October http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=27). 

6



Wade, R. (1982). “The system of administrative and political corruption: Canal irrigation in South India”. 

The Journal of Development Studies, vol. 18, n° 3, pp. 287–328. 

Suhardiman, D. and Mollinga, P. (2012). “Correlations, causes and the logic of obscuration: Donor shaping 

of dominant narratives in Indonesia’s irrigation development”. The Journal of Development Studies, 

vol. 48, n° 7, pp. 923-938. 

Thursday 11 July 

Natural Resources and Environment 2 

09:00 >12:00 Rural water supply and sanitation in the Mekong delta, Vietnam: 

global goals, national policy and local practice 

Nadine Reis 

Brief sketch of water supply and sanitation problems in the Mekong region as an 

example of the “global water crisis”. Discussion of the global governance response 

to that crisis – the Millennium Development Goals for water supply and sanitation. 

National policy and the “aid game”: outcomes, processes, and business for bureaucrats; 

Discussion of the logic of development assistance in the water supply and 

sanitation sector – for donors, for national governments and for local bureaucrats. 

Ground realities of rural water supply and sanitation (RWSS) in the Mekong delta: 

Discussion of practices of water supply infrastructure creation and micro-credits 

schemes for RWSS. 

12:00 >13:00 Lunch 

13:00 >15:00 Questions and Answers 

Peter Mollinga and Nadine Reis 

Formulation and discussion of general insights from the two presentations 

15:00 >17:00 Follow-up on student presentations: selection of topics and working 

in groups with tutors 

F. Graezer Bideau, C. Lutringer and I. Vogel Chevroulet 

18:00 >19:30 Optional movie: 3 Idiots 

(movie by Rajkumar Hirani, India, 2009, 111 min.) 


Reis, N. and Mollinga, P. (2012).” Water Supply or ‘Beautiful Latrines’? Microcredit for Rural Water Supply 

and Sanitation in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam”. ASEAS – Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, 

vol. 5, n° 1, pp. 10-29. 

7




Reis, N. (2012). “Global policy ideas: the operation on the image of the state”. In Tracing and making the 

state: Policy practices and domestic water supply in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, Chapter 5, Berlin: LIT, 

pp. 165-194. 

Bakker, K., Kooy M., Nur Endah S. and Martijn, E-J. (2008). “Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional 

Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households”. World Development, vol. 36, n° 10, pp. 

1891–1915. 

Special Issue (forthcoming 2013). In Water Alternatives on “Trends and Developments in Rural Water 

Supply Services Delivery”. 

FRIDAY 12 JULY 

Politics and social foundations of economic development 

09:00 >12.30 India after Independence 

Kaushik Basu 

An initial session will be devoted to understanding the social, political and cultural 

embeddedness of the Indian economy, paying special attention to the political 

constraints within which India operates and the strengths and weaknesses of this 

mooring. Contemporary India faces the challenge of trying to achieve high growth 

with social justice – inclusive growth, as the present government calls it. What are 

the policy instruments available for these objectives and what are the prospects 

of the Indian economy? The lectures will give a quick history and then focus on 

contemporary times, including the story of India’s globalization and handling of the 

Eurozone crisis. 

12:30 >14:00 Lunch 

14:00 >15:00 India after Independence (continued) 

Kaushik Basu 

15:00 >16:00 Wrap up 

16:00 >17:00 Evaluation module I 


Basu K., (2004). “The Indian economy up to 1991 and since”. In K. Basu (ed). India’s Emerging Economy: 

Performance and Prospects, Chapter 1, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, pp. 3-32. 

8



MODULE II 

CIVIL SOCIETY AND SOCIAL 

CHANGE IN RISING CHINA 

CHAIR: Chua Beng Huat 

Coordinator: Florence Graezer Bideau 

LECTURERS 

Alaka Basu 

Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University 

Chua Beng Huat 

Asia Research Institute and Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore 


Centre for Area and Cultural Studies, EPFL 

Daniel Goh 

Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore 

9



PROGRAMME 

Monday 15 July 

Social change across Asia 

09:00 > 09:15 Welcome, introduction to programme of module II 


09:15 >10:45 Rising Asia: Southeast Asia, China and India 


Since the mid 1960s, different regions of Asia have successively and successfully 

adopted the development strategy of “export-oriented” industrialization, with 

strong administrative and financial guidance from the state. Chronologically, the 

rise of Asia began with the four “Tiger/Dragon” economies of South Korea, Taiwan, 

Hong Kong and Singapore, followed by the marketization of the Chinese economy in 

the and the second wave of industrialization in Southeast Asia, including communist 

Vietnam. India also began to open up to the global market in the late 1990s. By the 

2000s, the rise of Asia was indubitable and Asia has become a critical element in 

global economic stability. 

11:00 >13:00 Society and social change in India 

Alaka Basu 

While the focus of this class will be on India, we will also turn often to the South 

Asian region as a whole, both to demonstrate commonalities as well as to specify 

some unique features of the Indian experience. The background reading contains 

recent social “facts” about the situation in India. These facts will provide the peg 

around which we will talk about the theoretical and empirical perspectives that 

seek to understand the question of society and social change in India. While we will 

focus in particular on social inequality by various measures – gender, caste, class, 

religion – the aim of the class is not just to demonstrate and explain the disadvantages 

faced by these different kinds of groups in Indian society. We will spend more 

time looking at the changes that have occurred over time (and while many of these 

changes have been positive, there have been some important negative ones as 

well), the possible reasons for these changes and, in particular, the role of policy in 

creating greater equality. I am particularly interested in recent efforts to empower 

disadvantaged groups through education, legal changes and economic productivity 

and to evaluate the impacts of such efforts. 

13:00 >14:00 Lunch 

14:00 >16:30 Society and social change in India (continued) 

Alaka Basu 

10



16:30 >17:00 Summary and discussion 

18:00 >19:30 Optional movie: English Vinglish 

(movie by Gauri Shinde, India, 2012, 73 min.) 


World Bank, (2011). “Overview”. In Poverty and Social Exclusion in India, Washington DC: World Bank. 

Mahbubani, K. (2008). “Why is Asia Rising Now”, in The New Asian Hemisphere. The Irresistible Shift of 

Global Power to the East. New York: Public Affairs, pp.51-99. 


Culture and Democracy in Asia 

09:00 >12:30 Asian Resistance to Liberalism 


American economic and military expansions globally have been accompanied by 

its ideological leadership, championing a version of liberal democracy which emphasizes 

liberal individualism over any social conception of politics and economy, 

including social democracy. However, liberalism has no roots in the post-war, 

post-colonial nations in Asia. With its highly successful capitalist development, the 

single-party dominant state of Singapore has resisted liberalism and reinterpreted 

the democratic concepts of representation and trusteeship to emphasize the social 

over the individual, backed up by social policies that emphasizes collective well 

being and group rights. This has provoked other Asian nations, particularly China, 

to “learn” from Singapore. 

12:30 >14:00 Lunch 

14:00 >16:30 Religion, state and political society 

Daniel Goh 

Unlike Western societies, religion does not occupy clearly defined institutional 

positions in civil society or the public sphere in Asia. Across Asia, religion is found 

playing both transparent and opaque roles in politics. Some religions are closely 

identified with the state, even in ostensibly secular states, and play a big part in 

political discourse and policy making. In some countries, religion plays a central 

institutional role in legitimating the state, while some states co-opt and control religions 

they believe pose challenges to their rule. In all these societies, religion plays 

a crucial role in mobilizing communities and local political action that would render 

state and society relations unstable and fluid. Political society, as a space distinct 

from the state and civil society, is theorized to understand this politics. 

16:30 >17:00 Summary and discussion 

11




Chua, Beng Huat. (2010). “Disrupting hegemonic liberalism in East Asia”, Boundary 2, vol. 37, n° 2, pp. 199 - 216. 

Chatterjee, P. (2007). “Democracy and the Violence of the State: A Political Negotiation of Death”. 

In Kuan-Hsing Chen and Chua Beng-Huat (eds), Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Reader, chapter 6, London: 

Routledge, pp. 163-177. 


Wang, Hui. (2011). “The Politics of Imagining Asia”. In Wang Hui, The Politics of Imagining Asia, Chapter 1. 

Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, pp. 10-62. 

Fealy, G. and McGregor K. (2010). “Nahdlatul Ulama and the Killings of 1965-66: Religion, Politics, and 

Remembrance”, Indonesia, no. 89, pp. 37-60. 


Heritage, Conservation and Civil Society 

09:00 >12:30 Cultural heritage discourses and contestations in China 


What is at stake in the conservation of the past in Asia? Urban heritage will be 

considered to discuss different strategies in the conservation contests between 

state authorities and civil society. Focusing on case studies in China, Malaysia and 

Singapore, this session is designed to highlight the empowerment of social groups 

engaged in processes of tangible and intangible cultural heritage taking place in 

different historical and political contexts. By comparing the local practices and discourses 

of these mobilized communities, we will explore how and why civic actions 

challenge national heritage policies not only as a competition for space and identity, 

but also as a result of desire for the global. 

12.30 >14:00 Lunch 

14:00 >16:30 Heritage politics in Singapore, Penang and Hong Kong 

Daniel Goh 

16:30 >17:00 Discussion 

18:00 >19:30 Optional movie Flowers of Shanghai / Hai shang hua 

(movie by Hou Hsiao Hsien, Taiwan, 1998, 70 min.) 


Nagata, J. (2010). “’Elasticity’ of Heritage from Conservation to Human Rights: A Saga of Development 

and Resistance in Penang, Malaysia”. In Langfield M. et al (eds), Cultural Diversity, Heritage and Human 

Rights: Intersections in Theory and Practice, chapter 7, London: Routledge, pp. 101-116. 

12




Graezer Bideau, F. and Kilani M. (2012). “Multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism and making heritage in 

Malaysia. A view from the historic cities of the Straits of Malacca”, International Journal of Heritage 

Studies, Vol. 18, n° 6, pp. 605-623. 

Ku, A. (2012). “Remaking places and fashioning an opposition discourse: struggle over the Star Ferry 

pier and the Queen’s pier in Hong Kong,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol. 30, no.1, 

pp. 5-22. 


Multiculturalism 

09:00 >12:30 Multiculturalism in Southeast Asia 


As postcolonial countries, all Southeast Asian countries are multi-ethnic or multiracial 

at the point of independence from colonial regimes. Furthermore, race is 

often closely linked to religion, for example, Indians and Hinduism. Such post 

colonial countries are thus states which contain many ethno-nations and in constant 

threat of fragmentation along racial or ethnic lines. This contrasts with the 

European conception of the nation-state which presumes an ethnically and linguistically 

homogeneous population. The new nations have been compelled to develop 

different strategies in the management of race and religion, developed under different 

models of “multiculturalism”. This lecture will discuss the different strategies 

adopted in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. 

12:30 >13:30 Lunch break 

13:30 >15:00 Student presentations (first round) 

15:00 >17:00 12 Storeys 

(movie by Eric Khoo, Singapore, 1997, 105 min.) 


18:00 >19:30 Optional movie: Paan Singh Tomar 

(movie by Tigmanshu Dhukia, India, 2010, 75 min.) 


Kymlicka, W. and He B. (2005). “Liberal Multiculturalism: Western Models, Global Trends, and Asian 

Debates”. In Multiculturalism in Asia, Chapter 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 22-55. 


Chua, Beng Huat. (2007). “Political Culturalism, Representation and the People’s Action Party of 

Singapore”, Democratization, vol. 14, n° 5, pp. 911-927. 

13



FRIDAY 19 JULY 

CONSUMPTION 

09:00 >12:30 Street food in Asia – Visual presentation 

CHUA Beng Huat 

Street food is often marketed as a tourist attraction in Asian countries, from developed 

Japan and Korea to developing Indonesia and Vietnam. Significantly, it is also 

an important economic institution that contributes to the global competitiveness of 

particularly emerging economies; inexpensive street food dampens wage demands, 

thus indirectly subsidizes production costs of capitalists. With sustained economic 

growth, rising education and income and rising expectations, the street food sector 

is facing mounting difficulties in recruiting individuals who are willing to take the 

arduous life of a street food vendor. The case of Singapore is illustrative of the 

instability and future sustainability of this important economic sector to both the 

daily life of the local citizens and national competitiveness of the emerging economies 

in Asia. 

12:30 >14:00 Lunch 

14:00 >16:00 Group presentations (second round) 

16:00 >17:00 Wrap up and evaluation module II 

14



MODULE III 

VISIONS, SOUNDS AND MEMORIES - 

POPULAR CULTURE IN EAST 

AND SOUTH ASIA 

CHAIR: Jeroen de Kloet 

Coordinator: Irène VOGEL CHEVROULET 

LECTURERS 

Jeroen de Kloet 

Globalisation Studies, University of Amsterdam 

Ian Condry 

Comparative Media Studies, MIT 

Chow Yiu Fai 

Humanities Program, Hong Kong Baptist University 

Andrea Riemenschnitter 

Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Zurich 

Gopalan Balachandran 

Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva 

15



PROGRAMME 

Monday 22 July 

Globalization and Youth 

09:00 >09:30 Introduction to module III 


09:30 >11:00 Asia in a globalized world 


How does globalization affect Asian culture and how does Asian culture affect 

globalization? This opening lecture will engage with the emergence of Asian pop 

culture in the context of current debates on globalization. 

11:00 >13:00 Japanese Anime 

Ian Condry 

Introduction to anime, youth cultures and popular culture in Japan. What does it 

mean to be young in Japan, and how are subcultural styles emerging in Japan, what 

role does music play? What anime cultures have been developed, how do they blur 

the lines between producer, text and consumer and how can an anthropological approach 

help us understand them? 

13:00 >14:30 Lunch 

14:30 >17:00 Summer Scent (TV drama by Yoon Seok-ho, Korea, 2003) 

Viewing and discussing assignment 

18:00 >19:30 Optional movie: Last train Home 

(movie by Fan Lixin, China, 2009, 85 min.) 


Chua, Beng Huat. (2004). “Conceptualizing an East-Asian popular culture”. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 

5, n° 2, pp. 200–221. 


Appadurai, A. (1996). “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Culutral Economy” in Modernity At Large 

- Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Chapter 2, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 27-47. 

de Kloet, J. (2010). “Introduction: Global longings with a Cut” in China with a Cut – Globalisation, Urban 

Youth and Popular Music, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 1-36. 

16




Cool Culture and Creativity 

09:00 >11:00 Cool Japan 

Ian Condry 

Hatsune Miku, Japan’s virtual idol, attracts audiences worldwide. What does this 

say about the future of media, capitalism, and political participation? This case is 

framed within the context of the creative industries in Japan, such as anime culture 

production, popular music, and fashion… How do fans participate in the production 

of culture? How are Japanese creativities supported, and what role does technology 

play? 

11:00 >13:00 Creative Hong Kong 

Chow Yiu Fai 

How does Hong Kong culture survive after the handover from British to Chinese 

rule in July 1997? What role could it play, and how can we study the production of 

culture in Asian cities like Hong Kong? What does Hong Kong tell us about postcolonial 

theory, and vice versa? 

13:00 >14:00 Lunch with students 

14:00 >17:00 Kamikaze Girls 

(movie by Tetsuya Nakashima, Japan, 2004, 102 min.) 



Condry, I. (2013). “Introduction: Who makes anime?” in The Soul of Anime: Collaborative Creativity and 

Japan’s Media Success Story, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 1-34. 


Chu, S. Yiu-wai. (2011). “Brand Hong Kong: Asia’s World City as Method?” Visual Anthropology, vol. 24, 

n°1-2, pp. 46–58. 

Yano, C.R. (2013) “Introduction: Kitty – Japan – Global”. In Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Trek Across 

the Pacific, Durham and London: Duke University Press, pp 1-42. 

17




Memory and Forgetting 

09:00 >13:00 Memory and culture 

Andrea Riemenschnitter 

Navigating between national memory-places, which are encoded as the location of 

a community’s political sublime, and the current revaluation of grass-roots’ place 

attachment, which defies this ideological encryption, we will explore the cultural 

semiotics of places in the PR China. How is China’s cultural production responding 

to the assault on the collective forms of memory by first, history, and second, economic 

development and the wholesale commodification of the planet? How do we 

bridge the gap between globalized cultural consumption and cultural encodings of 

the local, including the impact of the global on particular groups and locations? How 

is the growing urban-rural divide reflected in the cultural production? 

13:00 >14:00 Lunch 

14:00 >16:00 Emerging creativities in urban China 

Jeroen de Kloet and Andrea Riemenschnitter 

How has the discourse of the creative industries travelled to China, with which implication 

for cultural production, for the possibility of being critical, and how has 

this affected the city? What different creativities are currently emerging, with which 

socio-cultural and political implications. Is there any space left for criticality? And 

how are these emerging creativities implicated in the global cultural industries, 

such as an art world that consists of multiple biennales, and auctions in places like 

Hong Kong and Paris? 

17:00 >18:30 Optional movie: Fear and Trembling / Stupeurs et Tremblements 

(movie by Alain Corneau, France, 2003, 107 min.) 


Lee, Haiyan. (2012). “The Ruins of Yuanmingyuan: or, How to Enjoy a National Wound”. In Matten M.A. 

(ed), Places of Memory in Modern China. History, Politics, and Identity, Chapter 7, Leiden: Brill, pp. 

193-229. 


Liu, Xinmin. (2009). “In the Face of Developmental Ruins: Place Attachment and Its Ethical Claims”. In 

Sheldon, H. Lu and Jiayan Mi (eds), Chinese Ecocinema in the Age of Environmental Challenge, Chapitre 

11, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press Scholarship, pp. 217-248. 

Kong, L., Gibson C., Khoo L.-M., and Semple A.L. (2006). “Knowledges of the Creative Economy: Towards a 

Relational Geography of Diffusion and Adaptation in Asia.” Asian Pacific Viewpoint, vol. 47, n° 2, pp. 173-94. 

18




Cricket and Cinema 

09:00 >13:00 Cinema, cricket, and popular culture in contemporary India 

gopalan Balachandran 

These sessions explore the place of cinema in the popular imaginations of modern 

and contemporary India. How did popular cinema express and shape the hopes, 

longings, disappointments, and anger of a post-colonial nation? It is a popular 

cliché that only cinema and cricket keep India together. How did cricket come to 

occupy the role it did in modern India? How do cricket and cinema come together, 

and with what results? The readings are merely a starting point for reflections on 

cinema and cricket as sites for interventions seeking to express, shape, and perhaps 

appropriate the hopes and dreams that a billion people project on their stars 

and their work. 

13:00 >14:00 Lunch 

14:00 >17:00 Cinema, cricket, and popular culture in contemporary India 

(continued) 

Gopalan Balachandran 


Vasudevan, R. (2010). “The Contemporary Film Industry – I: The Meanings of ‘Bollywood’” in The Melodramatic 

Public: Film Form and Spectatorship in Indian Cinema, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 334-361. 


Vasudevan, R. (2010). “The Contemporary Film Industry – II: Textual Form, Genre Diversity, and Industrial 

Strategies” in The Melodramatic Public: Film Form and Spectatorship in Indian Cinema, London: 

Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 362-397. 

Nandy, A. (2007). “The Wistful Camel and the Eye of the Needle” and “Victory, Defeat and the Future of 

the Savage” in The Tao of Cricket: On Games of Destiny and Destiny of Games, chapters 2 and 3, Delhi: 

Oxford University Press, pp. 52-89 and 90-122. 

19



Friday 26 July 

Cities and Digital Culture 

09:00 >10:30 The fringes of the Asian City 

Chow Yiu Fai and Jeroen de Kloet 

In this lecture we start with general theories on life in the postmetropolis. We wonder, 

what does Lindner exactly mean when he writes about the blasé postmetropolitan 

attitude, and can we also trace such an attitude when living in a city like 

Lausanne? How does cinema help us grasp living in the city? And what about the 

fringes of the city, in particular: why are rooftops playing such an important role in 

movies? What do they signify? We will in particular look at rooftop scenes in three 

movies from Hong Kong: Infernal Affairs, High Noon and Inner Senses. 

11:00 >13:00 Digital culture in Asia 


The Chinese version of Twitter – Weibo – allows citizens to discuss all sorts of topics 

online, often before the censors can stop them. Will the Internet facilitate political 

change, or will it increase surveillance? How do new technologies change the 

mediascape of Asia? Are we all becoming cultural producers with the use of new 

technologies? If technology allows, in this session we will experiment live with Weibo 

and communicate with Chinese Weibo users… 

13:00 >14:00 Lunch 

14:00 >16:00 Student presentations (third round) 

16:00 >17:00 Wrap up and evaluation module III and Lausanne Summer School 


Chow, Yiu Fai and de Kloet, J. (2013). “Flanerie and acrophilia in the postmetropolis: Rooftops in Hong 

Kong cinema”. Journal of Chinese Cinemas, vol. 2, n° 2, pp. 139-155. 


Abbas, A. (2000). “Cosmopolitan De-scriptions: Shanghai and Hong Kong”, Public Culture, vol. 12, n° 3, 

pp. 769-86. 

20

graphisme: janka rahm - atelier huit

CONTACT DETAILS 

For further information please contact: 

Dr Florence Graezer Bideau, Acting Director 

Administration: 

Catherine CHAPERON 

EPFL – CDH – CACS 

CM 2 267 

Station 10 

CH-1015 Lausanne (Switzerland) 

T : +41 21 693 02 39 

E : catherine.chaperon@epfl.ch 

Or visit our website : https://cdh.epfl.ch/cacs

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