Contemporary Korean Culture from the Edge: Transgression, Innovation, and Intimacy

This book is for any reader seeking to understand and engage with contemporary South Korean culture. Inspired by the term “edge”, which in Korean refers to attitudes and ideas that are new, gripping and transgressive, each chapter provides a new perspective on today’s Korea.

Drawing from a range perspectives, Contemporary Korean Culture from the Edge: Transgression, Innovation, and Intimacy examines Korean culture (including food, music, fashion, K-pop, cinema and much more) as twenty-first century global phenomenon. The book highlights unique features of Korean culture such as the role of astrology in K-pop fandom, feminist art, and recent fiction, poetry, and drama. In uncovering underrepresented areas of modern Korea, the chapters pay attention to lesser known but important aspects, such as the country’s astonishingly dynamic urban architecture. By casting a wide net, and including bottom-up cultural movements, such as protest art, the book reveals the rich and critical role that art, music, and literature play in Korea.

Source: publisher’s website

Table of Contents

Part I: Korea from the Edge

1. Contemporary Korean Culture from the Edge: Transgression, Innovation, and Intimacy | Jooyeon Rhee, Hong Kal, and Thomas R. Klassen
2. Shifting Cultural Politics in the New Korean Wave Era | Dal Yong Jin
3. At the Intersection of Art and Politics: Protest Art in Korea | Hong Kal

Part II: Transgression

4. Will Someone Please Come Knocking at My Door? Korean Literature in the Twenty-first Century | Bruce Fulton
5. Looking to the Stars: The Astrology and MBTI of K-pop | Keung Yoon Bae
6. The Korean Style: Hybridity and the Hypermodern Aesthetic | Michael W. Hurt
7. Bodies in Contemporary Korean Feminist Art after the Feminism Reboot | Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon

Part III: Innovations from the Edge

8. Jogakbo Architecture: Patchwork Architecture and Urbanism of Seoul | Daekwon Park
9. A Century in the Making: Korean Popular Music’s Abbreviation to K-pop | Wonseok Lee and Pil Ho Kim
10. Digital Visual Culture in Korean Crime Thrillers | Mi Young Park

Part IV: New Expressions of Intimacy

11. Healing the Nation Through the Small Screen: Strange Lawyers, Psych Wards, Golden Kids, and South Korean Television Audiences | Bonnie Tilland
12. Ageing, Mutual Affection, and Romance: Gerontoromcons Come of Age in South Korean Cinema | Joanna Elfving-Hwang
13. From Hansik to Korean Corn Dogs: The Taste of Authenticity and Globalization of Korean Food | Jooyeon Rhee