London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

SOAS workshop: Culture and Society in Modern Korea

SOAS entrance

SOAS has now announced the programme for its free one-day Korean Studies workshop on 26 June. There are some entertaining speakers. Jim Hoare will be talking about the South’s engagement policy; Keith Howard looks like he’s going to be talking about something way over my head but he usually presents in a user-friendly manner. I’m sorry I never got around to writing about his brief talk given at Asia House on 6 March, where he gave a taster for what’s in his two-volume magnum opus on Korean music; maybe the lecture next week draws on some of this material. One good thing has come out of his upcoming talk already: while googling Kugak music I discovered a promising (if rarely updated) blog which seems to cover Korean art and music: Sigimsae Thoughts.

Rowan Pease will also be talking. And given that my summary of her talk given at Chatham House is currently my hottest article — surpassing even Celebrity BlogWatch in popularity1 — I know there will be many people out there who will be dying to go along to hear her. Unfortunately (and I’m making an educated guess based on the search terms used to land people on my site) most of the people who are reading that post are Super Junior fans outside of the UK.

Other speakers I’m not familiar with. But it’s a day of free lectures – some of them you’ll enjoy, some of them are likely to be outside your area of interest. Whatever happens, you’ll come away knowing more and wanting to explore in a different direction.

Here’s the official programme:

Korea, East Asia & Beyond: Culture & Society in Modern Korea

Centre of Korean Studies Workshop
Tuesday 26 June 07 – SOAS Room 116

10.00-10.15 ~ Opening remarks

10.15-11.30

  • Rowan Pease, “Turning the tide”: Chinese singers in the Korean Wave
  • Yang Youngkyun, The Expansion of the Joseonjok (Korean Chinese) Community and Their Identities in the Era of Globalization

11.30-12.45

  • James Hoare, From Confrontation to Engagement: Reflections on the ROK’s approach to the DPRK, 1976-2006
  • Park Dongjun, Korean Senior Citizen’s Issues and the Need to Insert a New Element of Virtue in a New Ethics Curriculum

~ Lunch break ~

14.00-15.15

  • Keith Howard, Kugak Fusion and the Politics of Musical Consumerism
  • Kim Hyeon, The Korean Wave, Cultural Content & Cultural Informatics

~ Coffee ~

15.45-17.00

  • Janet Poole, The World of the Anecdotal Essay in Wartime Korea: Yi T’aejun’s Eastern Sentiments (1941)
  • Kim Byongsun, In Pursuit of Poetic Resemblances: A Study Comparing Literary Styles in Modern Korean Poetry

17.00 ~ Reception

  1. and yesterday it was three times as popular as the nearest competitor []

(automatically generated) Read LKL’s review of this event here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.