From the publisher’s website: Pop City examines the use of Korean television dramas and K-pop music to promote urban and rural places in South Korea. Building on the phenomenon of Korean pop culture, Youjeong Oh argues that pop culture–featured place selling mediates two separate domains: political decentralization and the globalization of Korean popular culture. By analyzing the … [Read More]
Booklist: Travel and Geography (page 2)
See You Again in Pyongyang: A Journey into Kim Jong Un’s North Korea
From ballistic missile tests to stranger-than-fiction stories of purges and assassinations, news from North Korea never fails to dominate the global headlines. But what is life there actually like? In See You Again in Pyongyang, Jeppesen culls from his experiences living, traveling, and studying in North Korea to create a multi-faceted portrait of the country … [Read More]
Seoul: Memory, Reinvention, and the Korean Wave
From the publisher’s website: Seoul is a colossus both in its physical presence and the demand it places on any intellectual effort to understand it. How did it come to be? How can a city this immense work? Underlying its spectacle and incongruities is a city that might be described as ill at ease with … [Read More]
Hyecho’s Journey: The World of Buddhism
In the year 721, a young Buddhist monk named Hyecho set out from the kingdom of Silla, on the Korean peninsula, on what would become one of the most extraordinary journeys in history. Sailing first to China, Hyecho continued to what is today Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, before taking the Silk … [Read More]
Globalizing Seoul: The City’s Cultural and Urban Change
In the decades following the 1997 Asian economic crisis, South Korea sought segyehwa (globalization). Evidence of this is no more evident than in the country’s capital, Seoul, where urban development has been central to making the city a global hub and not just the centre of the national economy. However, recent development projects differ from those of … [Read More]
Classical Writings of Korean Women
This work is a collection of essays travelogues written by women during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). The work ranges from a eulogy for a broken needle to a travelogue describing various trips to scenic spots on the Korean peninsula, including to the Keum-Gang Mountains. Now available in English, this collection gives us a sampler of … [Read More]
A Chinese Traveler in Medieval Korea: Xu Jing’s Illustrated Account of the Xuanhe Embassy to Koryŏ
From the publisher’s website: “The king and ministers, superior and inferior, move with ritual and refinement. When the king goes on an inspection tour, everyone has the correct ceremonial attributes and the divine flag [troops] gallop in front while armored soldiers block the road. The soldiers of the Six Divisions all hold their attributes. Although … [Read More]
Tourist Distractions: Traveling and Feeling in Transnational Hallyu Cinema
From the publisher’s website: In Tourist Distractions Youngmin Choe uses hallyu (Korean-wave) cinema as a lens to examine the relationships among tourism and travel, economics, politics, and history in contemporary East Asia. Focusing on films born of transnational collaboration and its networks, Choe shows how the integration of the tourist imaginary into hallyu cinema points to the region’s evolving … [Read More]
Kimchi Kiwis: Motorcycling North Korea
Join Gareth and Jo Morgan and their companions as they rattle and splash their way around North Korea on their epic Motorcycle Adventure. Experience with them the thrill of riding through North Korea, the hermit kingdom itself. Above all, discover with them the truth behind the headlines that define North Korea and its people to … [Read More]
Without You, there is no Us
From the publisher’s website: It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, except for the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. This is where Suki Kim has accepted a job teaching English. Over the next six months she will eat three meals a day with … [Read More]
North Korea Undercover
From the publisher’s website: North Korea is like no other tyranny on earth. It is Orwell’s 1984 made reality. The regime controls the flow of information to its citizens, pouring relentless propaganda through omnipresent loud speakers. Free speech is an illusion: one word out of line and the gulag awaits. State spies are everywhere, ready … [Read More]
An Affair with Korea: Memories of South Korea in the 1960s
From the publisher’s website: In 1966 Vincent S. R. Brandt lived in Sokp’o, a poor and isolated South Korean fishing village on the coast of the Yellow Sea, carrying out social anthropological research. At that time, the only way to reach Sokp’o, other than by boat, was a two hour walk along foot paths. This … [Read More]
Everyday Life in Joseon-Era Korea: Economy and Society
Winner of the 2014 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award Everyday Life in Joseon-Era Korea shows how the momentous changes of the time transformed the lives of the common people. In twenty-three concise chapters, the book covers topics ranging from agriculture, commerce, and mining to education, marriage, and food culture. It examines how both the spread of … [Read More]
Korea (Seoul Selection Guides)
Publisher description: With 5,000 years of history and culture packed into one very tight package, Korea is a fascinating travel destination that both compares and contrasts favourably with its larger neighbours. From the pulsating streets of Seoul to the peaceful temples and gardens of the Korean countryside, Korea is a study in contrasts—one foot in … [Read More]
Only Beautiful, Please: A British Diplomat in North Korea
From the publisher’s website: Coverage of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) all too often focuses solely on nuclear proliferation, military parades, and the personality cult around its leaders. As the British ambassador to North Korea, John Everard had the rare experience of living there from 2006, when the DPRK conducted its first nuclear … [Read More]
Seoul (Seoul Selection Guides)
Publisher description: Korea’s capital for the last 600 years, Seoul is an energetic, pulsating city where the ancient and modern coexist in dramatic contrast. With its grand royal palaces, quaint old alleyways, ancient temples, colorful markets, neon shopping districts, and verdant mountains, you’ll never run out of things to see and do. The most comprehensive … [Read More]