Recent decades witnessed a “creative turn” in which creative industries have become increasingly the core of economic and city planning, and young people are increasingly drawn to work in fields of art and culture. Informed by the present historical conjuncture, this course will examine a host of timely and thorny issues: precarity and caring, engagement and alienation, hope and hopelessness, in order to ask students what they think is “good work.” This course, as its title suggests, is made up of two parts. Alongside a presentation of major theoretical and empirical inquiries on creative work and industries, it invites a variety of veteran professionals to share not only their work experiences of creative work but also their vision on creativity and work at large.

This course aims to enable postgraduate students: (1) to examine the notions of creativity, creative industries and creative labour, as well as related theories and debates; (2) to learn from vision and experience of professionals in various creative sectors; (3) to engage with culture, and creative practitioners in productive dialogues; (4) to reflect on their own experience as (aspirant) cultural professional; and (5) to acquire skills to formulate research projects and conduct research in related topics.