On the evening of April 15, 2014, the Sewol ferry set sail on its overnight journey from Incheon, in northwestern South Korea, to Jeju Island, 240 miles to the south. There were 476 people on board. After receiving a distress call from a passenger onboard, Harbor Affairs at Jeju and at Jindo Island both urged … [Read More]
Booklist: Modern Korea (page 2)
Imperial Entertainers: Korean Women Performers from Military to Global Stages, 1937–75
The book uncovers the untold stories of Korean women performers who navigated successive waves of conflict as cultural laborers in military entertainment, offering insight into the intersection of war, gender, and culture in East Asia. Imperial Entertainers: Korean Women Performers from Military to Global Stages, 1937-1975 uncovers the untold stories of Korean women performers who navigated … [Read More]
The Sensational Proletarian: Leftist Cultures in Colonial Korea
Starving ghosts, anguished farmers, and grieving mothers. Floating heads, gaunt bodies, and masses of bodily fluids. Such are the visceral sensations, exaggerated affects, and suffering subjects that characterized leftist Korean cultural production in the 1920s and 1930s. In popular fiction, print cartoons, reportage, and other emergent forms of mass culture, scenes detailing the spectacular bodily … [Read More]
Against Abandonment: Repertoires of Solidarity in South Korean Protest
Across the world, protest has become a much-debated tactic in struggles against inequality, political corruption, and ecological disaster. In South Korea, protest is a ubiquitous and essential form of political expression. In 1987, mass protests forced reforms that led to democratizing government. In 2017, the Candlelight movement removed the sitting president. Beyond these spectacular national … [Read More]
I’ll Love You Forever: Notes from a K-Pop Fan
Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror meets Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings in a meditation that blends memoir and cultural criticism to explore how the author’s love affair with K-pop has shaped her sense of self, charting K-pop’s complex coming-of-age through some of its biggest idols. I’ll Love You Forever: Notes from a K-Pop Fan is a … [Read More]
Opposing Desires: The Contentious Politics of the South Korean Anti-LGBT Movement
In times of right-wing populists gaining traction worldwide, conservative Christians engage in both continuous and dynamic action forms to gain societal and political hegemony. Hendrik Johannemann delves deeply into the contentious practices of the South Korean anti-LGBT movement, investigating its roots, framing strategies, transnational ties, and political endeavors. Sociologists, political scientists and practitioners alike will discover … [Read More]
Critically Capitalist: The Spirit of Asset Capitalism in South Korea
An ethnography of South Korea’s lay investors and aspiring millionaires that demonstrates how South Korea’s capitalism thrives on its critiques. Critically Capitalist presents an ethnography of South Korea’s asset seekers, including amateur stock investors, real estate enthusiasts, and money coaches, to demonstrate how financialized asset capitalism is sustained. As they hunt for profit margins, rent, and … [Read More]
Polarizing Dreams: Gangnam and Popular Culture in Globalizing Korea
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]
Worm-Time: Memories of Division in South Korean Aesthetics
Worm-Time challenges conventional narratives of the Cold War and its end, presenting an alternative cultural history based on evolving South Korean aesthetics about enduring national division. From novels of dissent during the authoritarian era to films and webtoons in the new millennium, We Jung Yi’s transmedia analyses unearth people’s experiences of “wormification”—traumatic survival, deferred justice, and warped … [Read More]
Cinema under National Reconstruction: State Censorship and South Korea’s Cold War Film Culture
Cinema under National Reconstruction calls for a revisionist understanding of state film censorship during successive Cold War military regimes in South Korea (1961–1988). Drawing upon primary documents from the Korean Film Archive’s digitized database and framing South Korean film censorship from a transnational perspective, Hye Seung Chung makes the case that, while political oppression/repression existed inside … [Read More]
The Postdevelopmental State: Dilemmas of Economic Democratization in Contemporary South Korea
Examining the struggle to align high-growth economic models with the egalitarian promises of democracy. Over the last 25 years, South Korea has witnessed growing inequality due to the proliferation of non-standard employment, ballooning household debt, deepening export-dependency, and the growth of super-conglomerates such as Samsung and Hyundai. Combined with declining rates of economic growth and … [Read More]
The Politics of South Korea: A Comprehensive Introduction
Once an impoverished, autocratic country, in just a few decades South Korea has transformed itself into a vibrant democracy with a highly developed economy. Using a comparative perspective to look at the factors behind South Korea’s dynamism, Ji Young Choi provides a comprehensive, balanced, and accessible introduction to the country’s politics, economy, and international relations. … [Read More]
The Korean Myths: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes and Legends
Korean myths are a living and evolving part of society, in both the North and South. With the export of Korean films, K-pop, fashion, K-dramas, literature and comics across the globe there is a growing desire to understand the folklore and mythical underpinnings of contemporary Korean culture. From the Changsega (‘Song of Creation’) sung by … [Read More]
The Passenger: South Korea
Eighty years ago, at the end of a devastating fratricidal war, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world, completely dependent on the United States for security and development. Today it’s the tenth economy in the world, dynamic and innovative, a lively and participatory democracy that sits at the table of the … [Read More]
The State’s Sexuality: Prostitution and Postcolonial Nation Building in South Korea
The State’s Sexuality uncovers how the lives and work of women engaged in prostitution, long considered the most abased members of society, have been strategically intertwined with the lofty purpose of building South Korea’s postcolonial nation-state. Through a complicated, contradictory patchwork of laws and regulations, which Park Jeong-Mi conceptualizes as a “toleration-regulation regime,” the South Korean … [Read More]
Civic Activism in South Korea: The Intertwining of Democracy and Neoliberalism
In recent decades, neoliberalism has transformed South Korean society, going far beyond simply restructuring the economy. In response, a number of civic organizations that emerged from the democratization movement with a conscious emphasis on social change have sought to address socioeconomic and political problems caused or aggravated by the neoliberal transformation. Examining how “citizens’ organizations” … [Read More]