I've spent the past two weeks primarily on reviewing existing literature. My research combines Chinese history, current IR dynamics between the the West and China, film history, as well as film production in China and the United States. I started out with two books (Hollywood Made in China by Aynne Kokas and Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy by Erich Schwartzel) that served as foundational sources at the intersection of all the aforementioned fields of study. From there, I built out the literature review by doing deeper dives on key themes and topics, examining bibliographies, and locating additional sources to explore. Reading across a wide variety of sources helped me map the top scholars in the field and hone in on potential points of discussion and arguments I could use when writing my paper.
Another important task at hand was to track all the information I gathered through the literature review. I created several spreadsheets: one to account for the names of all the executives, filmmakers, and movies I came across; a second to trace key arguments; and a third to pinpoint important data points and other potential sources I might be able to use in the future. I spent a lot of time at Georgetown's Lauinger Library these past weeks -- the collections vastly enhanced the information I had access to and led to new discoveries such as realizing that Netflix had been blocked off from expanding streaming access to China since it started streaming in 2007.