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Over the past decade, Korean popular culture has become a global phenomenon. The "Korean Wave" of music, film, television, sports, and cuisine generates significant revenues and cultural pride in South Korea. The Korean Popular Culture Reader provides a timely and essential foundation for the study of "K-pop," relating the contemporary cultural landscape to its historical roots. The essays in this collection reveal the intimate connections of Korean popular culture, or hallyu, to the peninsula's colonial and postcolonial histories, to the nationalist projects of the military dictatorship, and to the neoliberalism of twenty-first-century South Korea. Combining translations of seminal essays by Korean scholars on topics ranging from sports to colonial-era serial fiction with new work by scholars based in fields including literary studies, film and media studies, ethnomusicology, and art history, this collection expertly navigates the social and political dynamics that have shaped Korean cultural production over the past century.
Contributors. Jung-hwan Cheon, Michelle Cho, Youngmin Choe, Steven Chung, Katarzyna J. Cwiertka, Stephen Epstein, Olga Fedorenko, Kelly Y. Jeong, Rachael Miyung Joo, Inkyu Kang, Kyu Hyun Kim, Kyung Hyun Kim, Pil Ho Kim, Boduerae Kwon, Regina Yung Lee, Sohl Lee, Jessica Likens, Roald Maliangkay, Youngju Ryu, Hyunjoon Shin, Min-Jung Son, James Turnbull, Travis Workman
List of contents
Preface / Youngmin Choe vii
Introduction. Indexing Korean Popular Culture / Kyung Hyun Kim 1
Part 1. Click and Scroll 15
1. The World in a Love Letter / Boduerae Kwon 19
2. Fisticuffs, High Kicks, and Colonial Histories: The Ambivalence of Modern Korean Identity in Narrative Comics / Kyu Hyun Kim 34
3. It All Started with a Bang: The Role of PC Bangs in South Korea's Cybercultures / Inkyu Kang 55
4. As Seen on the Internet: The Recap as Translation in English-Language K-Drama Fandoms / Regina Yung Lee 76
Part 2. Lights, Camera, Action! 99
5. Regimes within Regimes: Film and Fashion Cultures in the Korean 1950s / Steven Chung 103
6. The Quasi Patriarch: Kim Sûng-ho and South Korean Postwar Movies / Kelly Jeong 126
7. The Partisan, the Worker, and the Hidden Hero: Popular Icons in North Korean Film / Travis Workman 145
8. Face Value: The Star as Genre in Bong Joon-ho's
Mother / Michelle Cho 168
Part 3. Gold, Silver, and Bronze 195
9. Bend It Like a Man of Chosun: Sports Nationalism and Colonial Modernity of 1936 / Jung Hwan Cheon 199
10. "She Became Our Strength": Female Athletes and (Trans)national Desires / Rachael Miyung Joo 228
Part 4. Strut, Move, and Shake 249
11. Young Musical Love of the 1930s / Min-Jung Son 255
12. Birth, Death, and Resurrection of Group Sound Rock / Hyunjoon Shin and Pil Ho Kim 275
13. The Popularity of Individualism: The Seo Taiji Phenomenon in the 1990s / Roald Maliangkay 296
14. Girls' Generation? Gender, (Dis)Empowerment, and K-pop / Stephen Epstein and James Turnbull 314
Part 5. Food and Travel 337
15. South Korean Advertising as Popular Culture / Olga Fedorenko 341
16. The Global
Hansik Campaign and Commodification of Korean Cuisine / Katarzyna J. Cwiertka 363
17. Back Seung Woo's
Blow Up (2005-2007): Touristic Fantasy, Photographic Desire, and Catastrophic North Korea / Sohl Lee 385
Bibliography 407
Contributors 431
Index 435
About the author
Kyung Hyun Kim is Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures and Director of the Critical Theory Emphasis at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Virtual Hallyu: Korean Cinema of the Global Era and The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema, both also published by Duke University Press.
Youngmin Choe is Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California.
Summary
This collection provides a timely and essential foundation for studying Korean popular culture ("K-pop") by looking at its global popularity, relation to the contemporary cultural landscape, and historical roots.
