FUAIM Lecture: Dr. Lijuan Qian, 13th October, 11.00 am, O'Riada Hall, Department of Music

13 Oct 2022

Dr. Lijuan Qian is senior lecturer in music at University College Cork, National University of Ireland. She is the author of A Tolerant Mainstream: The Pop Song in China in the 1980s (2016, in Chinese) and the translator of E. H. Gombrich, Julian Hochberg, Max Black, Arts, Perception and Reality, 2015 (English to Chinese) and over 20 articles, book reviews and essays mainly on digital social media and popular music studies, and on intangible cultural heritage among women and ethnic minority populations in China. Lijuan Qian is principal investigator of the 5-year community-engaged ERC research project ECura, Everyone’s a Curator: Digitally Empowering Ethnic Minority Music Sustainability in China.

Hip Hop in China and Its Multi-Dimensional Narratives

Abstract: What is the landscape of hip hop in a large contemporary state where a centralized, state-controlled media industry has increasingly evolved into a highly commercialized system with an international reach? The workings of this ‘Western/Marxist hybrid’ system have resulted in the rise of many localized and innovative narratives from hip hop performers, their audiences, and the media agencies in the field, including those from various underground, female, brotherhood, regional, and ethnic perspectives. Listening to these narratives on hip hop provides a multi-vocal way of understanding the deep realities of contemporary China.