Center for Korean Studies

The editorial team of Korean Studies is delighted to announce the publication of Korean Studies 2024 volume 48.
https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/52739

This volume was an ambitious project, featuring two highly relevant special sections --"A Translational Reading of the Invention of Korea's Confucian Traditions" (guest-edited by Daham Chong) and "Portrayals of Motherhood in South Korean Popular and Practiced Culture" (guest-edited by Bonnie Tilland)"--of nine articles, followed by four excellent research articles, one pertinent review article, and four useful book reviews. All available through MUSE.
https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/52739

If you have ideas for an article or a special section, we are all ears.

With appreciation,
Cheehyung Harrison Kim
Editor ([email protected])

Korean Studies 2024 Volume 48
https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/52739

Editor's Note
Cheehyung Harrison Kim (University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, USA)

Special Section: A Translational Reading of the Invention of Korea's Confucian Traditions

Introduction to Special Section: A Translational Reading of the Invention of Korea's Confucian Traditions
Daham Chong (Sangmyung University, South Korea)

South Korean Historiography on Civil Service Examination, Max Weber, and the Cold War Transpacific Invention of Confucian Modernity
Daham Chong (Sangmyung University, South Korea)

The Rescue Mission: From Confucian Corruption to Protestant Conscience at the Turn of Nineteenth Century Korea
Young-chan Choi (University of Oxford, UK)

The Genealogy of Confucian Modernity and the Reconstruction of Confucian Traditions in Post-Liberation Korea
Kim Hunjoo (Hanbat National University, UK)

Staging "Civilization and Enlightenment"—Yi Kwang-su's Kyuhan and the Communicability of Modern Theater Space
Owen Stampton (University of British Columbia, Canada)

Special Section: Portrayals of Motherhood in South Korean Popular and Practiced Culture

Introduction to Special Section: Portrayals of Motherhood in South Korean Popular and Practiced Culture
Bonnie Tilland (Leiden University, The Netherlands)

The Mother in Kore-eda's Broker: Striking New Reverberations in the Korean Context
Ji-yoon An (University of British Columbia, Canada)

A Total Management System, Mothering
Young A. Jung (George Mason University, USA)

From Patriarchal Motherhood to Feminist Mothering? The Depiction of the Single Mother Tongbaek in the K-drama When the Camellia Blooms (2019)
Barbara Wall (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)

Salvation Through Womanhood: The Doctrine of Woman Leadership and Portrayal of Ko P'allye as the Great Mother in Chŭngsando
Andrew Miles Logie (University of Helsinki, Finland)

"Wise Mothers," "Mom Bugs," and Pyŏngmat (Twisted Tastes): The Limits of Maternal Emotional Expression in South Korean Webtoons
Bonnie Tilland (Leiden University, The Netherlands)

Research Articles

Ungrateful Refugees: North Korean Refugees in South Korea
Hyosun Lee (Yonsei University, South Korea)

Migration Trajectories of Indonesian Expatriates in South Korea
Nur Aisyah Kotarumalos (National Research and Innovation Agency, Indonesia)

Founding Father or National Traitor? Contested Memories of Syngman Rhee in Mid-1990s South Korea
Patrick Vierthaler (Kyoto University, Japan)

Views at Variance: Korean Women Disrupting and Subverting the Narrative of Protestant Missionary Women Through Moments of Difference, 1884–1910
Kyrie Vermette (University of British Columbia, Canada)

Review Article

The Discourse of Korean Han: Background and Historical Landscape
Kristjana Gunnars (University of Iceland)

Book Reviews

Women in the Sky: Gender and Labor in the Making of Modern Korea by Hwasook Nam (review)
Hosub Hwang (University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa)

Narratives of Civic Duty: How National Stories Shape Democracy in Asia by Aram Hur (review)
Ji-won Lee (University of Albany, USA)

Cine-Mobility: Twentieth-Century Transformations in Korea's Film and Transportation by Han Sang Kim (review)
Suhyun Kim (Osaka Metropolitan University, Japan)

Making Peace with Nature: Ecological Encounters along the Korean DMZ by Eleana Kim (review)
June Hee Kwon (California State University, Sacramento)

It is with great sadness that we let you know that Dr. Hugh Hi-Woong Kang, Emeritus Professor of History and CKS member, a trailblazing Korea historian passed away on July 16, 2024.

In Memoriam:
Hugh Hi-Woong Kang, Trailblazing Historian and Visionary Builder of Korean Studies

Hugh Hi-Woong Kang, Emeritus Professor at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, a trailblazing Korea historian in the United States, a visionary builder of the Korean studies discipline, and a loving partner, father, and grandfather, died on Tuesday, July 16, 2024, at the age of 92, in South Korea.

With his magnanimous spirit and boundless energy, Hugh Kang helped to establish the discipline of Korean studies in the United States. As a scholar of ancient and medieval Korea, he was one of the first Korea historians to become a faculty member in a history department in the United States, when he joined the University of Hawai‘i’s Department of History in 1965. With Yong-ho Ch’oe, who joined the History faculty in 1970, the University of Hawai‘i became the first university in the United States to grant a Ph.D. in Korean history.

Hugh Kang’s work was impactful from the beginning. In 1971, he organized a historic international conference on Korean studies in Honolulu, the earliest conference of its kind in the world and an event reported widely in Hawai‘i and South Korea. He was also a principal figure in the founding of the Center for Korean Studies at the university in 1972, the first Korean studies center outside of South Korea. In 1990, he helped to establish the International Society for Korean Studies, the only global Korean studies organization that is regularly attended by scholars from South Korea and North Korea. Even after retirement in 2003, Hugh Kang remained committed to building Korean studies worldwide.

Hugh Kang penned the seminal historical work Institutional Borrowing: The Case of the Chinese Civil Service System in Early Koryŏ. And in collaboration with his former student and Emeritus Professor Edward Shultz, he translated and edited some of the most important foundational books in premodern Korean history, including The Silla Annals of the Samguk Sagi, The Koguryŏ Annals of the Samguk Sagi, The Essentials of Koryŏ History, and Sources of Korean Tradition.

Born in 1931 in Jinhae, South Korea, and raised in Busan, Hugh Kang started his college education in 1951 at the Wartime Union University. He served as a translator during the Korean War and continued his college education at Seoul National University after the war. In 1955, Hugh Kang left the war-torn South Korea to pursue further education in the United States. He went on to receive a B.A. from Berea College, in 1956, an M.A. from the University of Chicago, in 1958, and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington, in 1964. He taught for a year at the University of Toledo before accepting the faculty position at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

In an interview with South Korea’s daily The Kyunghyang Shinmun in 2012, Hugh Kang spoke about the role of scholars in the development of Korean studies. “Our role is to discover how Korean culture and history are connected to universal values of truth, goodness, and aesthetics and to explain the connections in a systematic way. If we can find the universal values from our culture, then our culture can resonate anywhere in the world,” he said.

Hugh Kang’s assessment has been prescient. The field of Korean studies that he helped to start six decades ago has now become an important discipline firmly established across the United States. Furthermore, his vision of searching for universal values is consistently reflected in the Center for Korean Studies’ mission to foster dialogue and engagement among people around the world.

Hugh Kang's brilliance, generosity, and camaraderie will be dearly missed. He was dedicated to his family and friends. He relished seafood and enjoyed tennis, golf, and walks in nature. He is survived by his two daughters, nieces, nephews, and their families. A memorial will be held at the Center for Korean Studies in the fall.

[Prepared by the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa]

The Center for Korean Studies presents an exciting event: “Advancing Health and Wellness in the Korean immigrant Community in Hawaii: A Multidisciplinary Conference” on August 8, 2024 from 9:00AM- 5:30PM.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Korean Studies along with other departments.

Title: “Advancing Health and Wellness in the Korean Immigrant Community in Hawaii: A Multidisciplinary Conference”

When: August 8, 2024, at 9:00AM- 5:30PM
Where: Center for Korean Studies Auditorium, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Speakers:

-Eunjung Kim, PhD, Associate Professor, School of Nursing, University of Washington in Seattle
-Hye-ryeon Lee, PhD, Professor, School of Communication & Information, University of Hawaii at Manoa
-Kyoung Eun Lee, PhD, Associate Professor, Nancy Atmospera-Walch School of Nursing, University of Hawaii at Manoa
-Song Yi Park, PhD, Associate Professor, Population Sciences in the Pacific Program, Cancer Epidemiology, University of Hawaii Cancer Center
-Younghee Ro, PhD, Research Professor, Kangnam University
-YoungJu Shin, PhD, Chauncey M. Depew Endowed Associate Professor, Department of Organizational Sciences and Communication, George Washington University
-Junah Song, PhD, Professor, College of Nursing, Korea University
-David Daeyoung Suh, JD, President, The United Korean Association in Hawaii
-Philip Suh, MD, Pacific Primary Care, Honolulu

This conference brings together experts in nutrition, nursing, health communication, medicine, and social work, as well as community leaders to discuss how to improve health and wellness among Korean immigrants in Hawaii!

If you have any questions, please contact Prof. Hye-ryeon Lee at [email protected] or Prof. Kyoung Eun Lee at [email protected].

Register for Free by 8/4/24 https://go.hawaii.edu/SCF

Emeritus Yong-ho Ch'oe, a Pioneering Scholar of Korean History, dies at 93

Remembering Yong-ho Ch’oe, a Pioneering Historian of Korea, an Advocate of Local Community Advancement, and a Champion of Harmony between the East and the West

Yong-ho Ch’oe, Emeritus Professor at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, a pioneering scholar of Korean history, a devoted husband, and a loving father of two sons, died peacefully on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Honolulu. He was 93.

Born in 1931 in the city of Gyeongsan in southeastern Korea during the tumultuous colonial period, Yong-ho Ch’oe grew up in a family deeply involved in the Korean independence movement, an upbringing that brought hardship but also equipped him with the capacity for hard work and a sense of duty for a greater cause.

When the Korean War broke out in 1950, Yong-ho Ch’oe enlisted in the South Korean army still as a teenager, eventually becoming an intelligence officer and serving until 1958. A part of his duty was to work with the United State military, a job that opened an opportunity for him to go to college in the United States. In 1960, he enrolled at Rockford College in Illinois and later transferred to the University of Arizona, where he completed his undergraduate education. All of his graduate education was at the University of Chicago, a place where he gained a broad perspective of humanity, having studied European history and American history, along with Asian history. He received his Ph.D. from Chicago in 1970 while he was a researcher at the Harvard East Asia Research Center.

Yong-ho Ch’oe joined the Department of History at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in the fall of 1970, his academic home from which he gifted the world with his tireless energy, excellent scholarship, and beloved collegiality for thirty years. He was a trailblazing scholar of Korean history and Korean American history, as well as an early advocate of Korean studies. With Yong-ho Ch’oe and Hugh Kang (also Emeritus) on the History faculty, the University of Hawai'i Mānoa became the first university in the United States to grant a Ph.D. in Korean history. Yong-ho Ch’oe was also a founding member of the Center for Korean Studies at the university, the oldest and largest center devoted to Korean studies outside of Korea, established in 1972. His commitment to advancing Korean studies is further reflected in his involvement in launching two seminal academic journals—first "Korean Studies" based at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, in 1975, and then "Acta Koreana" based at Keimyung University in Daegu, in 1998.

Yong-ho Ch’oe’s splendid research, represented by three books, traversed time periods and regions. His first book, published in 1987, was "The Civil Examinations and the Social Structure in Early Yi Dynasty Korea, 1392-1600," a groundbreaking book about the society of Korea’s Joseon Kingdom. Another major contribution to the field of Korean history was the monumental series "Sources of Korean Tradition, Volumes 1 and 2" (1993 and 1996) and "Sources of Korean Tradition, Volumes 1 and 2" (1997 and 2000), which he co-edited with Peter Lee and Theodore de Bary and all published by Columbia University Press. The Sources, which compiles and explains key historical texts, is firmly placed among the Korean studies canon. Later in his career, he wrote passionately about the history of Koreans in Hawai'i, editing "From the Land of Hibiscus: Koreans in Hawai'i, 1903-1950," published by the University of Hawai'i Press in 2006.

In an interview with "Acta Koreana" in 2010, Yong-ho Ch’oe said the following when asked about what the East and the West should to learn from each other: “Too often in the encounters between the East and the West, the latter has exhibited its ugly inclinations, such as misconceived racism and a predatory appetite toward the former, taking advantage of its military and industrial power. But, fortunately, such a conception has fast dissipated in the last several decades. Globalization is inevitable and is here now, and regardless of one’s origin or belief, all must live together in peace and harmony with mutual respect for each other.” He was a true champion of global cooperation.

As a teacher, Yong-ho Ch’oe was warm and cultivating. A number of his students became influential scholars in Korean history, including Yeon-ung Kwon at Kyungpook National University, Seong-nae Pak and Byeong-yul Ban at Hanguk University of Foreign Studies, Jay Lewis at the University of Oxford, Kenneth Robinson at the International Christian University in Japan, Michael Seth at James Madison University, Brandon Palmer at Coastal Carolina University, John Duncan at UCLA, and Chizuko Allen at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

Even after retirement, in 2001, Yong-ho Ch’oe was active and engaging, regularly organizing a community forum at his apartment in Kaka‘ako, where people from different backgrounds gathered to learn and discuss the pressing issues of the day. For his scholarship and dedication, Yong-ho Ch’oe received, in 2020, the Light of the Orient Award given by the Korean American Foundation of Hawai'i. In 2021, the South Korean government awarded him the Order of Civil Merit Dongbaek Medal, the third highest order of merit given by the government.

Yong-ho Ch’oe was very committed to the well-being of the local community as well. With the enactment of the new Federal Immigration Law in 1965, the number of Korean immigrants arriving in Hawai‘i increased suddenly, which also created a number of social problems in the city. One vulnerable group was the new immigrant youth. With Reverend Dae Hee Park of the Christ United Methodist Church, he organized the Korean Youth Program in 1981 to offer English lessons, counseling advice, and sports and other recreational activities after school. He took charge of this program and ran it with the assistance of the Honolulu YMCA for over a decade. He also helped to start the Korean Community School, serving the school as vice principal, teacher, and board member for forty years. The United Korean Association of Hawai‘i was another organization in which he was active.

When asked, in 2022, to write a commemorative essay for the fiftieth anniversary of the Center for Korean Studies, Yong-ho Ch’oe did not write about the many accolades he received during his long career. No. He wrote about the time in September 1978 when he formed the Committee for Korean Rights and protested against the local media’s use of the term “Korean bars” to refer to all hostess bars in Honolulu. He and the Committee demanded the media stop using the term because it was derogatory and because the hardworking people at these drinking taverns deserved dignity and respect. In late September, a local newspaper released a statement of apology and the term was never used again in Hawai‘i’s media. For a person who overcame many barriers and achieved considerable success, he certainly felt that fighting for the rights and respect of the tavern workers was one of his proudest moments.

Yong-ho Ch’oe will be remembered as a person filled with kindness, generosity, humor, and courage. He was a brilliant historian, a wonderful colleague, and a champion of underrepresented peoples of Hawai‘i. He is survived by his spouse, Minja Kim Ch’oe (a renowned population studies scholar), their two sons, Yun and Dan, and a granddaughter.

[Prepared by the members of the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.]

The 17th Worldwide Consortium of Korean Studies Centers (WWC) Conference is happening at the Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa on May 9-10, 2024.

- Where: Center for Korean Studies Auditorium
- When: May 9, 2024- May 10, 2024

You are cordially invited to join the conference. During the Conference, Graduate students, recommended by the Korean Studies Centers, will be presenting on his or her research projects, while Center Directors and participating faculty members will be commenting on the research projects.

As sideline events, the Korean Studies Directors and representative faculty members from 14 Universities meet to share the status of the Korean Studies at their home institutions and discussing the challenges that Korean Studies are facing.

The Worldwide Consortium of Korean Studies Centers (WWC) Conference was initiated on February 20-21, 2005 by eight representative universities leading the world's Korean studies. The meeting participants reached the decision to form the WWC Conference composed by the Korean studies centers at 12 universities in 2006. The 12 core constituent universities of the WWC conference are: The University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, UCLA, Harvard University, The Australian National University, The University of British Columbia, Korea University, Seoul National University, Fudan University, and Peking University. , Yonsei University, The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Kyushu University.

Except for the pandemic period of recent years, conferences have been held almost every year in the form of meetings of directors of the Korean Studies centers and academic conferences of graduate students where the directors and professors serve as discussants. The 17th WWC Conference has been decided to be held at the University of Hawaii.

This year, 21 faculty members (Directors of Korean studies centers and/or representative faculty members) from 14 participating Universities and 12 graduate students will join the WWC Korean Studies Centers Conference.

The 17th WWC academic conference events will be held on May 9-10, 2024, at the Center for Korean Studies Auditorium and Conference room as follows:

(1) Meeting of directors or dispatched representatives of the Korean Studies centers affiliated with WWC
a. Sharing the status of Korean studies research and discussing current issues
b. The director's meeting will be held in a hybrid format, allowing for both face-to-face meetings and online participation via the Internet.
(2) Academic conference will be held with the presentations by graduate students recommended by each Korean Studies center and discussions by the directors or representative professors.

Out Now! Dawn of Labor 노동의 새벽 by Park Nohae 박노해
University of Hawaii Press 2024

Translated by Brother Anthony 안선재 and C. Harrison Kim 김지형
With essays by Janet Poole and Brother Anthony.
Includes all the poems in Korean.
Includes a lengthy glossary to provide finer meaning and historical contexts.
Cover image by the the legendary woodblock artist Oh Yoon 오윤.

Go here to order your copy! https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/dawn-of-labor/
Use the code AAS2024 for a 30% discount

The Center for Korean Studies and the University of Hawaii Press are delighted to announce the English-language publication of Dawn of Labor 노동의 새벽. Dawn of Labor is part of the "Hawaii Studies on Korea" Book Series (edited by C. Harrison Kim). Originally published in 1984, Dawn of Labor pierced the heart of an era. Despite a ban by the authoritarian government, the collection sold a million copies and left an indelible mark in Korea’s literary history. Park Nohae, then a twenty-seven-year-old factory worker, wrote the manuscript with pencil on tissue paper, and a literary critic published it without revealing the identity of the author. The literary world was instantly ignited by the book’s vivid portrayal of the screams of ten million workers, a group all but forgotten by the Korean society at large. Park Nohae was soon wanted by the police, and this situation turned him into the faceless poet. Many college students read his poems and gave up their privileges, entering the factories as disguised workers and building a wave of workplace struggles. Four decades after its first publication, Dawn of Labor is once again showing us the power of poetry.

Park Nohae is South Korea’s most acclaimed activist poet. Dawn of Labor, his first poetry collection, was published in 1984. Park Nohae wrote these poems in his twenties as a factory worker having come to Seoul from the countryside, as millions of others had done at the time. Throughout the 1980s, he was a revolutionary fighting against South Korea’s military dictatorship, for which he was imprisoned in solitary confinement for seven years. Having vowed to “not live today by selling the past,” he has forged his own path of activism. With the founding of the organization Nanum Munhwa (Culture of Sharing) in 2000, he has documented, with pen and camera, people living in places that do not appear on maps. The fearless critique and revolutionary vision of Dawn of Labor continue to resonate in all his works.

Brother Anthony of Taizé, who also goes by his Korean name An Sonjae 안선재, is a literature scholar and translator and is professor emeritus of English language and literature at Sogang University in Seoul.

Janet Poole is associate professor of Korean literature at the University of Toronto.

Cheehyung Harrison Kim 김지형 is associate professor of Korean history at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

Greetings! The Center for Korean Studies is pleased to host a book talk entitled "Powa-yuramgi (布哇遊覽記) and Modern Travelogues about Hawaii" with Professor Yelee An from the Academy of Korean Studies.

Book talk information:
When: 3 PM, Thursday, April 11, 2024 (reception from 2:45 PM)
Where: Center for Korean Studies Auditorium, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Abstracts:
This book talk aims to illuminate Korean travelers’ perspectives on Hawaii during the early 20th century. Dr. An will first introduce Powa-yuramgi (布哇遊覽記), written by Hyun Soon in 1909, which stands as the inaugural document informing Korea of Hawaii's geography, history, and culture, alongside detailed accounts of early Korean immigrants' lives in Hawaii. Subsequently, Dr. An will present travelogues about Hawaii published in Korean newspapers and magazines from the 1900s to the 1930s. These accounts were penned by individuals from diverse backgrounds, including journalists, novelists, politicians, painters, and athletes. Despite their differing professions, they collectively left an indelible mark on Korea's modern history.

Dr. Yelee An received her Ph.D. at Yonsei University in 2013 and has been working at the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS) since 2016. She is currently an Associate Professor and teaches Korean Linguistics.

Center for Korean Studies events are free and open to all. For further information, including information regarding disability access, telephone the Center for Korean Studies at 808-956-7041.

Acclaimed South Korean writer Gong Ji-young 공지영 at CKS!
Celebrating the publication of Togani 도가니 in English.

Thu, April 18, 2024, 3PM (reception 2:45PM)
Center for Korean Studies Auditorium, Univ of Hawaii Manoa

The talk is to celebrate the English-language publication of Togani 도가니 by the University of Hawaii Press.
Gong Ji-young will speak on the phenomenal reverberations of Togani and engage in Q&A with the audience.

Also joining are the translators of Togani, the renowned Korean literature translators Bruce Fulton and Ju-chan Fulton. Bruce Fulton (University of British Columbia) will speak on the global arena of translating Korean literature.

Please join us to celebrate the English-language publication of Togani, which is also a book of "Hawaii Studies on Korea," a series edited by C. Harrison Kim. All inquiries to the series editor [email protected].

The Center for Korean Studies and The Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures jointly present:

"Making over 'The Big Reveal': Medical Tourism YouTube Vlogs and the Globalizing of the South Korean 'Look' by Dr. S. Heijin Lee.

When: February 28, 2024, 12:00pm-1:00pm
Where: Moore Hall #258 (1890 East-West Rd, 96822)

Abstracts:

Sponsored by medical tourism agencies, Medical Tourism YouTube vlogs chronicle the YouTuber’s journey to South Korea, their multiple surgeries, the pain of recovery and surgery’s results. Focusing on US-born BIPOC YouTubers, the speaker shows how these vlogs "translate" K-surgery, and other elements of K-culture like K-pop, to an Englishspeaking audience. Ultimately, the speaker argues that the vlogs enact the South Korean “look,” made popular by K-pop idols, onto non-Korean bodies and illuminate how the "Korean look" destabilizes global ideas about race.

Speaker:

Dr. S. Heijin Lee is Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Lee’s research explores the imperial routes of culture and media.

The talk is open to the public. For more information, please contact Pier-Carlo Tommasi ([email protected]) or Emily Jungmin Yoon ([email protected]). For disability access, please contact the EALL office at 956-8940 or [email protected]. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Institution.

The Center for Korean Studies is pleased to host the prominent annual forum, The 14th Critical Issues Forum on Korean Studies with a presentation titled Transmedia Ecologies of Korean “New Retro".

February 8th, 2024: Critical Issues Forum Lecture

Speaker: Michelle Cho, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of East Asian Popular Cultures and Cinema Studies, University of Toronto.
When: Thursday,February 8th, 2024 at 3:30PM -5:00PM
Where: Center for Korean Studies Auditorium (1881 East-West Road, Honolulu, HI)
Dr. Cho's presentation probes the multiple genealogies of “new retro”(aka “뉴트로”)—contemporary South Korean pop culture’s drive to an imagined past as the dominant aesthetic register of the current zeitgeist. The talk will situate the ubiquity of nostalgia-tinged portrayals of late ‘80s and ‘90s youth culture as an inescapable popular aesthetic in film and television (e.g., tvN’s Reply (응답하라) series (2012-16), a watershed of 21st century popular media that selfreflexively
portrays the impact of commercial popular media on the social transformations of the post- authoritarian period), then move to the transmedia domains of City Pop and related genres of music and media production driven by digital distribution and platform engagement. Dr. Cho argues that the aesthetics and sensoria of new retro illuminate the social impacts and ideological effects of contemporary parasocial engagement, to suggest that the trendiness of retro aesthetics today serves a diagnostic function, as the visible trace of global media entanglements of both human and algorithmic agency.

Speaker:

Michelle Cho, Ph.D, Dr. Cho is Assistant Professor of East Asian Popular Cultures and Cinema Studies at the University of Toronto. Her published work explores contemporary South Korean genre cinemas, Korean television, K-Pop’s politicization on digital platforms, and histories of race and racialization in K-Pop and its fandoms.

Moderator:

Dr. Young-A Park, Associate Professor of Asian Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

February 9, 2024: A Conversation with Dr. Cho

On the second day, there will be a second event titled, Critical Approachs to Hallyu: A Conversation with Dr. Michelle Cho and Dr. S. Heijin Lee.

When: Friday, February 9, 2024 at 10:30am- 12:00pm
Where: Center for Korean Studies Conference Room.
The Center for Korean Studies events are free and open to all. For further information, including information regarding disability access, telephone the Center for Korean Studies at 808-956-7041. This event is supported by the Doo Wook & Helen Nahm Choy Fund. The University of Hawai‘i is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution.

Dear Friends and Families of the Center for Korean Studies:

Thank you for your great supports for the Center for Korean Studies in 2023! We wish many great things will happen to you and your family during the holidays and in the coming year of the Dragon, 2024! Happy New Year!

Best wishes,
Center for Korean Studies
Tae-Ung Baik, Director
University of Hawaii at Manoa
1881 East-West Road #104
Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
Tel: (808) 956-7041