THE FIRST EVER OFFICIAL BOOK: Published in celebration of BTS’s 10th Anniversary, stories that go beyond what you already know about BTS, including unreleased photos, QR codes of videos, and all album information. After taking their first step into the world on June 13, 2013, BTS will celebrate the 10th anniversary of their debut in … [Read More]
Booklist: K-pop
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]
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]
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]
You Call That Music?! Korean Popular Music Through the Generations
You Call That Music?!: Korean Popular Music Through the Generations provides a critical overview of the history of Korean popular music from 1920 to the 2000s from the perspective of cultural history. First published in Korean in 2017 by one of the best-known critics, Lee Young-Mee, this book is a timely and much-needed source of information on Korean … [Read More]
Hegemonic Mimicry: Korean Popular Culture of the Twenty-First Century
In Hegemonic Mimicry, Kyung Hyun Kim considers the recent global success of Korean popular culture—the Korean wave of pop music, cinema, and television also known as hallyu—from a transnational and transcultural perspective. Using the concept of mimicry to think through hallyu’s adaptation of American sensibilities and genres, he shows how the commercialization of Korean popular culture … [Read More]
Soul in Seoul: African American Popular Music and K-pop
From the publisher’s website: K-pop (Korean popular music) reigns as one of the most popular music genres in the world today, a phenomenon that appeals to listeners of all ages and nationalities. In Soul in Seoul: African American Popular Music and K-pop, Crystal S. Anderson examines the most important and often overlooked aspect of K-pop: the … [Read More]
BTS and ARMY Culture
ARMY is a community of taste, and BTS is their common denominator. This book started from the wish to apply the perspective of a cultural studies scholar in order to investigate the fandom ARMY as a most ardent outcome to arise from a “community of taste.” On a personal level, the most pressing question was … [Read More]
K-Pop Idols: Popular Culture and the Emergence of the Korean Music Industry
From the publisher’s website: Converging theory and practice, this book provides a unique analysis of Korean youth’s attempts to become global celebrities within the growing K-pop phenomenon, which is rapidly becoming part of global media systems and culture. K-pop has become one of the most popular cultural forms in the global music markets, despite having … [Read More]
Hanguk Hip Hop: Global Rap in South Korea
From the publisher’s website: How has Hanguk (South Korean) hip hop developed over the last two decades as a musical, cultural, and artistic entity? How is hip hop understood within historical, sociocultural, and economic matrices of Korean society? How is hip hop represented in Korean media and popular culture? This book utilizes ethnographic methods, including … [Read More]
BTS, Art Revolution
Publisher description: Recently, a seven-member boy band from Korea called BTS has captivated the globe, forming the most massive and powerful fandom in history. The BTS phenomenon reaches far beyond the typical achievements of pop stars: as Jiyoung Lee illustrates, the changes that have been shown by BTS and their fandom ARMY are not confined … [Read More]
K-Pop Live: Fans, Idols, and Multimedia Performance
From the publisher’s website: 1990s South Korea saw the transition from a military dictatorship to a civilian government, from a manufacturing economy to a postindustrial hub, and from a cloistered society to a more dynamic transnational juncture. These seismic shifts had a profound impact on the media industry and the rise of K-pop. In K-pop Live, … [Read More]
K-pop – The International Rise of the Korean Music Industry
From the publisher’s website: K-pop, described by Time Magazine in 2012 as “South Korea’s greatest export”, has rapidly achieved a large worldwide audience of devoted fans largely through distribution over the Internet. This book examines the phenomenon, and discusses the reasons for its success. It considers the national and transnational conditions that have played a … [Read More]
Performing Korea
This book offers an exploration of the intersection of Korean theatre practice with Western literary theatre. Gangnam Style, K-Pop, the Korean Wave: who hasn’t heard of these recent Korean phenomena? Having spent two years in Korea as a theatrical and cultural ‘tourist’, Patrice Pavis was granted an unparalleled look at contemporary Korean culture. As well … [Read More]
Made in Korea: Studies in Popular Music
From the publisher’s website: Made in Korea: Studies in Popular Music serves as a comprehensive and thorough introduction to the history, sociology, and musicology of contemporary Korean popular music. Each essay covers the major figures, styles, and social contexts of pop music in Korea, first presenting a general description of the history and background of popular music … [Read More]