Art, Pop, and Belonging: How to Talk About Korean Popular Culture
- So-Rim Lee
- College of Arts & Sciences
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First-Year Seminar Grant
It’s not just BTS that is storming the Billboard charts; from television dramas, film, fashion, cosmetics, and food, Korean popular culture seems to be everywhere. In this course, we will discuss the significance of culture on the Korean peninsula focusing on its impact on people (“popular” as “of the general public”) and their lived experiences throughout the twentieth century, from the colonial era leading into the contemporary South Korea. Surveying the formation and development of Korean culture, we will revisit major events in and beyond the twentieth century including the Japanese occupation, national division and the Korean War, military dictatorships, democratization movements, the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and the globalization of hallyu and K-pop. Addressing topics such as gender and sexuality, modernity and national trauma, xenophobia and racial tensions, queer feminist movements, and cultural transnationalism in the neoliberal era, we will pay particular attention to the structures of power and the role of the “other” in the construction of contemporary South Korea. Reading across a wide range of texts from Korean history, anthropology, cultural studies, urban studies, cinema and media studies, and visual and performance studies, we will explore diverse materials including film, television, music videos, social media, user-generated contents, among others. All class materials will be in English; no previous knowledge of Korean language is required.