The meteoric rise and global impact of Hallyu has made South Korea a cultural powerhouse, where pop-culture and cosmetic surgery co-exist with centuries-old shamanistic and Confucian rituals. This vibrant creative force, a potent mix of the traditional and hyper-new, informs Korean design today. Drawing on the V&A’s renowned collection, this compelling publication explores social history … [Read More]
Booklist: Arts and Culture
The Forest Called You
In a future Korea, the world has been ravaged by dust clouds and the deadly Akanta virus. Rather than live in their nightmarish present, people slip on virtual reality headsets to indulge in nostalgic simulations of the past. 18-year-old Soop – stigmatised due to her brush with Akanta, which causes VR-rejection – is bullied at … [Read More]
The Minjung Art Movement: Decolonization and Democracy in South Korea
Emerging as multifaceted cultural activism, the minjung (people’s) art movement defined the aesthetics of the pro-democracy movements in the 1970s and 1980s in South Korea. Tracing minjung art’s history and legacy, Sohl Lee explores how artists associated with the movement mobilized images, print, and performance to build movement publics and reimagine sovereignty. Hundreds of artists questioned the … [Read More]
Contemporary Korean Music in Context: Bridging Tradition, Modernity, and the Global Stage
This book encloses an interdisciplinary examination of Korean music’s evolution, contextual interactions, and global positioning from historical, sociocultural, and aesthetic perspectives. It brings together various scholarly contributions to analyse Korean music’s transformations, innovations, and cultural suggestions, with a focus on its historical roots and contemporary manifestations. This book captures the multifaceted dynamics in Korean music, … [Read More]
From Koreanness to K-ness: Contemporary Korean Culture and Society
From Koreanness to K-ness: Contemporary Korean Culture and Society aims to conceptualise ‘K-ness’ as a new way of understanding the underlying characteristics that shape the semiotic, cultural, and sociological representations of contemporary Korean culture and society. The global popularity of Korean cultural content has sparked extensive interest in various facets of the Korean language, culture, and … [Read More]
The Cultural Diplomacy of South Korea: Exhibiting the Nation in International Museums
This book explores the role played by museums and museum exhibitions in South Korea’s cultural diplomacy and international projection of itself to the world. Based on extensive archival research and fieldwork in cultural diplomatic institutions across South Korea, Britain and the United States, this book charts the important role played by this form of cultural … [Read More]
Jeong: The Spirit of Korean Craft and Design
The first book to explore the full scope and beauty of Korean design – from traditional craft to celebrated contemporary creations Characterized by a unique blend of tradition and innovation, and by a focus on sustainability and efficiency, Korean design is recognized for its creativity, quality, and beauty. Jeong: The Spirit of Korean Craft and … [Read More]
Representations of Japan in South Korean Cinema of the Park Geun-hye Era: Invaders, Lovers and Demons
Providing a rare example of a national cinema that has managed to overturn the prevailing global paradigm of Hollywood dominance, South Korean films are nevertheless still haunted by the peninsula’s earlier colonial history. Focussing on a series of films produced during the administration of disgraced and then pardoned President Park Geun-hye (2013–2017), this book examines … [Read More]
Death Without End: Korea and the Thanatographics of War
The Korean War was never formally declared, and no peace treaty ending the war was ever signed. The 1953 armistice did not stop the war but marked its extension and expansion into a warlike state of emergency. How did the new reality of life under armistice shape visions of the possible in North and South … [Read More]
K-Pop Fandom: Performing Deokhu from the 1990s to Today
K-Pop Fandom insists that K-pop fan practices and activities constitute a central productive force, shaping not only K-pop’s explosive global popularity, but also K-pop’s cultural impacts, politics, and horizons of possibility. Over the past three decades, the K-pop fandom and its activities have expanded, intensified, and diversified along myriad dimensions, assuming novel social, technological, and economic … [Read More]
Lyrical Translation: The Creation of Modern Poetry in Colonial Korea
Lyrical Translation is a literary history of modern Korean poetry’s origins and its development through translation. As the use of Korean became increasingly restricted during the Japanese occupation, translation was not a choice but a necessity for higher education and intellectual labor. Yet it also had an expansive, creative function: Korean poets wielded it as an … [Read More]
Critical Approaches to Transmedia Storytelling in K-Pop
In Critical Approaches to Transmedia Storytelling in K-Pop, contributors present a variety of compelling case studies to argue that K-pop has evolved beyond a musical genre into a global cultural phenomenon with a growing influence on contemporary media practices, highlighting its transmedia ecosystem in which complex narratives unfold and engage audiences across formats and platforms. … [Read More]
Bong Joon Ho: Philosopher and Filmmaker
With the release of Parasite (2019), recipient of the Palme d’Or and an Academy Award for Best Picture, South Korean director Bong Joon Ho secured his place as one of his generation’s leading filmmakers. Yet while scholars and critics have long appreciated his penetrating critique of Korean society and global capitalism, his oeuvre has not … [Read More]
Finding Mr. Perfect: K-Drama, Pop Culture, Romance, and Race
Finding Mr. Perfect explores the romantic relationships between Korean men and women who were inspired by romantic Korean televisual depictions of Korean masculinity to travel to Korea as tourists. Author Min Joo Lee argues that disparate racialized erotic desires of Korean pop culture fans, foreign tourists to Korea, Korean men, and the Korean nation converge to … [Read More]
The History of Korean Popular Culture
This book is a seminal example of historical writing on Korean popular culture, based on solid data that integrates historical facts and cultural symbols within a broader analytical framework, offering insightful critical interpretation. It explores the history of Korean popular culture that has grown and developed on the foundation of modern history. The history of … [Read More]
Every Day I Read: 53 Ways to Get Closer to Books
From the internationally bestselling author of Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop comes a warm and reflective collection of essays about reading, language and life. Why do we read? What is it that we hope to take away from the intimate, personal experience of reading for pleasure? Rarely do we ask these profound, expansive questions of ourselves and … [Read More]