Anyone genuinely curious about what makes South Korean pop culture tick should look no further than Gangnam. Celebrated in a song by an unlikely K-pop superstar named Psy in 2012, Gangnam is the epicenter of Hallyu, the Korean Wave. It is an exclusive zone of privilege and wealth that has lured pop culture industries since the 1980s … [Read More]
Booklist: Hallyu
Sociolinguistics of the Korean Wave: Hallyu and Soft Power
Samosir and Wee examine how the immensely popular Korean Wave (“K-wave”) also known as Hallyu is wielded as soft power through the use of communication for persuasion and attraction on the global stage. The Korean Wave refers to the global spread and popularity of South Korean culture, particularly its pop music (“K-pop”), serialised dramas (“K-dramas”) … [Read More]
Emergence of Korean English: How Korea’s Dynamic English is Born
Emergence of Korean English explores the dynamic nature of emerging Korean English and its impact on Korean society, culture, and identity. This book challenges the negative stereotypes and stigmatization of Konglish and argues that it has been a great asset for Korea’s fast economic development. The fate of Korean English has been transformed in the time … [Read More]
BTS on the Road
In just a decade since their debut in 2013, BTS has achieved remarkable impact beyond the music and entertainment activities of a K-pop group. They have succeeded in gaining interest and popularity as an icon of the contemporary global youth generation, not as fictional characters but as real people with Asian faces who are facing … [Read More]
Women We Love: Femininities and the Korean Wave
Women We Love: Femininities and the Korean Wave is an edited volume exploring femininities in and around the Korean Wave since 2000. While studies on the Korean Wave are abundant, there is a dearth of thought put toward the female-identifying stars, characters, and fans who shape and lead this crucial cultural movement. This collection of … [Read More]
The K-Wave On-Screen: In Words and Objects
The K-Wave On-Screen provides an engaging and accessible exploration of the meaning of ‘K-’ through the lens of words and objects in K-dramas and K-films. Once a small subculture known only to South Korea’s East Asian neighbours, the Korean Wave has exploded in popularity around the globe in the last decade. Its success has been … [Read More]
Surviving Squid Game: A Guide to K-Drama, Netflix, and Global Streaming Wars
Korea has fully stepped onto the global stage in stunning strides. From the Oscar-winning film Parasite to the pop juggernaut known as BTS, Korean popular culture has taken the world by storm. This new Korean wave has influenced global tastes in drama, music, fashion, and can even be seen in the beauty industry’s obsession with Korean … [Read More]
The Language of Hallyu: More than Polite
The Language of Hallyu will re-examine the language of the Korean Wave by looking at popular K-content. In doing so, it will expose the meanings that get lost in translation, hidden under subtitles. Over the past decade, hallyu (the Korean wave) has exploded in popularity around the globe. K-films, K-drama, and K-pop were once small subcultures, known mostly … [Read More]
Introducing Korean Popular Culture
This new textbook is a timely and interdisciplinary resource for students looking for an introduction to Korean popular culture, exploring the multifaceted meaning of Korean popular culture at micro and macro levels and the process of cultural production, representation, circulation and consumption in a global context. Drawing on perspectives from the humanities and social sciences, … [Read More]
The Cambridge Companion to K-Pop
How did Korea with a relatively small-scale music industry come to create a vibrant pop culture scene that would enthrall not only young Asian fans but also global audiences from diverse racial and generational backgrounds? From idol training to fan engagement, from studio recording to mastering choreographic sequences, what are the steps that go into … [Read More]
Understanding Korean Webtoon Culture: Transmedia Storytelling, Digital Platforms, and Genres
Webtoons are the latest manifestation of the Korean Wave of popular culture that has increasingly caught on across the globe in recent years, especially among youth. Webtoons are a form of comic that are typically published digitally in chapter form. Originally distributed via the Internet, they are now increasingly distributed through smartphones to ravenous readers … [Read More]
On BTS: Pop Music, Fandom, Sincerity
A love letter to Korean pop sensation BTS and an ode to fandom. The supersonic rise of the Korean pop group BTS may seem enigmatic to some, but for Lenika Cruz, senior culture editor at The Atlantic, their worldwide fame is obvious. As Cruz argues in On BTS: Pop Music, Fandom, Sincerity, the group’s trajectory—debuting on a … [Read More]
Korean Wave in World Englishes: The Linguistic Impact of Korea’s Popular Culture
This book examines the linguistic impact of the Korean Wave on World Englishes, demonstrating that the K-Wave is not only a phenomenon of popular culture, but also language. The “Korean Wave” is a neologism that was coined during the 1990s that includes K-pop, K-dramas, K-film, K-food, and K-beauty, and in recent years it has peaked … [Read More]
Hallyu!: The Korean Wave
South Korea has transformed from a country devastated by war in the late 1950s to a leading cultural powerhouse of the 21st century. Through the voices of fans, journalists, practitioners, novelists and academics, Hallyu! explores the makings of the Korean Wave of cultural influence over the interlinked creative industries of cinema, drama, music, fandom, beauty … [Read More]
South Korean Popular Culture in the Global Context: Beyond the Fandom
This book explores the recent landscape of Korean popular culture, including celebrity diplomacy, political activism, and inter-Korean relations in the era of ‘ontact’, with a special focus on K-pop and K-drama. Utilising the interdisciplinary approach, along with theoretical accounts, it redefines popular culture and its true power – beyond soft power – including discussions of … [Read More]
K-pop Dance: Fandoming Yourself on Social Media
This book is about K-pop dance and the evolution and presence of its dance fandom on social media. Based on five years of ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, choreography, and participation-observation with 40 amateur and professional K-pop dancers in New York, California, and Seoul, the book traces the evolution of K-pop dance from the 1980s to the … [Read More]