[KS] The Monash University Korean Studies Seminar Series 8

[Soyeon Kim]

Dear Korean Studies members,

I would like to announce the forthcoming talk at Monash University in
Melbourne, Australia. Monash University has been holding seminars on
various topics related to Korean Studies, and our last talk series for this
semester is going to be held next week as an online seminar. Please see the
details below:



The Monash University Korean Studies Research Hub is proud to present:

The Melbourne Metropolitan Korean Studies Seminar Series Talk 8: Prof. Kyung
Hyun Kim (UC Irvine)

*Wednesday, September 15, 12-1 PM AEST*

The Virtual Feast: Mukbang, Con-Man Comedy, and Blackness in Parasite (2019)


*Abstract*

This talk will focus on Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-ho, Kisaengch’ung) and
probe the reasons why it had become one of the most successful films ever
made outside Hollywood. This crime thriller successfully switches out
predictable melodramatic codes usually reserved for blockbuster films for
comedic conventions of wordplay, con-artist schemes, and food drama. Kim
will argue that these themes not only problematize the division between
real and fake and serve as a larger subject of the tension between haves
and have-nots but also allow us to look at how food has lost its social or
even cultural significance and has instead assumed a perverse, negative,
and almost undesirable association with gluttony and psychological
depression in the era of mukbang (eatcast). How the cynicism raised in the
film compares against some of the code-switching themes in Hollywood
comedies featuring African American stars will be probed.  The talk will
also explore the career of writer/director Bong Joon-ho and
contextualize Parasite
within the Korean Cinema of the new millennium.



Bio

Prof. Kyung Hyun Kim is a creative writer, a scholar, and a film producer,
who is currently a professor in the Department of East Asian Studies, UC
Irvine. He has worked with internationally renowned directors such as Hong
Sang-soo, Lee Chang-dong and Marty Scorsese, and also with American film
producers Jason Blum and Steven Schneider. Prof. Kim is author of Virtual
Hallyu: Korean Cinema of the Global Era, The Remasculinization of Korean
Cinema, Hegemonic Mimicry: Korean Popular Culture of 21st Century, all of
them published by Duke University Press, and a Korean-language novel
entitled In Search of Lost G (Ireo beorin G-reul chajaso, 2014) about a
Korean mother combing through the US in search of her missing son during
his junior year in a Massachusetts prep school.  He has coproduced and
co-scripted two award-winning feature films Never Forever (2007, Sundance
Film Festival’s U.S. Main Competition) and The Housemaid (2010, Cannes Film
Festival Main Competition), and his co-scripted film screenplay, The
Origins of a Detective (Hyeongsa eui kiwon), won the cash prize (US$
30,000) by being selected for the 2019 Best Film Development Project by the
Korean Film Commission. He has also written The Mask Debate
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msxfxVfFgsE&t=4s>, his first theatre
screenplay, which premiered in February 2021 through UCI’s Illuminations:
Chancellor’s Initiative in Arts and Drama YouTube channel.
[image: image.png]

Please register here for your attendance:

*https://forms.gle/7mhbWuCsf1K94YkZA <https://forms.gle/7mhbWuCsf1K94YkZA>*

For any questions regarding this event, please contact:

Ms Soyeon Kim (Soyeon.kim at monash.edu)

Yours sincerely,


*Soyeon Kim*

PhD candidate/ Teaching associate / AKS research officer
School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics
Monash University
Clayton, Victoria, 3800
Australia

Email: Soyeon.Kim at monash.edu
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