American Studies HKU School of Modern Languages and Cultures HKU
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BA Course

Elective Course
AMER2070 Connecting East Asia and the Americas: A Multimedia Odyssey
6 credits
 
The increasing interconnectedness of China and Latin America in the 21st century has attracted attention towards new global flows in cultural, economic and political areas, and prompted reflection on the contribution of diasporic Chinese, Korean and Japanese communities to the construction of a Latin American identity. This course aims to bring together students in different majors offered at SMLC for the study of the cultures and history of the Americas, including North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. The teaching and learning methodology includes extensive use of VR (virtual reality) and other multi-sensory tools to facilitate immersion in the foreign environments such as virtual field trips to locations of historical, experiential or cultural significance and museums. The teaching methodology makes the “virtual” experience also a social and more-or-less simultaneously experienced event including exploratory and open-ended learning experiences that promote social-emotional engagement with material and individuals, and nurture long-term application of learned concepts. Aiming to decenter or expand text-centric pedagogy toward more multi-modal and multi-sensory learning experiences in the context of Universal Design for Learning, the course combines VR experiences, 360 film, with face-to-face and distance-learning methods. This is an innovative, transdisciplinary course both in terms of the content and skills, including multimedia and intercultural communication, that students will acquire through it.
 
Prerequisite: Nil
Assessment: 100% coursework
(Offered in 2021/2022, 2st semester)

 

American Studies HKU