[KS] Pil Ho Kim's lectures at USC

[sunyoung park]

Dear All,

The USC Korean Studies Institute is hosting Prof. Pil Ho Kim (Ohio State Univ) for two events in early February. In case you're around USC, please see below the abstracts and RSVP links.

Gangnam: The Hallyu Entertainment Industry Capital and the Locus of Social Evil

Feb. 6 (Thurs), 2-3:30 pm
Taper Hall of Humanities (THH 309K)

Anyone genuinely curious about what makes South Korean pop culture tick should look no further than Gangnam. Having been wildly celebrated by an unlikely K-pop superstar called Psy in 2012, it is the epicenter of Hallyu, the Korean Wave. Gangnam is an exclusive zone of wealth and privilege that has lured pop culture industries to take root and flourish since the 1980s. But at the same time, Gangnam is widely regarded as a breeding ground for ‘social evil’ (sahoeak) in South Korea as it has firmly established itself as the shrine of the unholy trinity of Korean capitalism: real estate speculation, adult entertainment/sex industry, and college-prep private education business. Gangnam’s foul sense of place, associated with such social evils as organized crime, sex work, and overheated educational competition, has helped create compelling villain characters in South Korean film and television drama. Moreover, Gangnam often makes the evil contagious to other characters, who become complicit either in evil acts perpetrated by villains or in corrupt social institutions. By analyzing Yeon Sang-ho’s animation The King of Pigs (2013) and Yoon Jong-bin’s film Beastie Boys (2008) as the main visual texts, this talk will take an unflinching look at the dark side of South Korean society ranging from school bullying to entertainment industry scandals to misogynistic violence, all of which have provided compelling narratives for an increasing number of Hallyu media products.

RSVP
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScDPXMs8BN5hxFZgDwS1hSir2bRvEV2A3oTb9GCtbWfiJIjHQ/viewform


K-pop: A Century in the Making

Feb 4 (Tues), 11:00-12:20 pm
White Philips Hall B27

K-pop’s sustained global popularity from Psy’s “Gangnam Style” to BTS has piqued the curiosity of many about its origins and transformations. This talk takes an expansive view of K-pop as an abbreviation of Korea’s century-long musical tradition – from early twentieth-century folk songs, Japanese colonial-era jazz, 1960s’ rock and soul from the U.S. military bases in South Korea, to the emergence of home-grown musicians who would become the masterminds of K-pop entertainment company juggernauts. It is a tradition full of shapeshifting crossovers, ingenious hybridities, and intercultural collaborations, all of which have served as key ingredients to K-pop’s meteoric rise.

RSVP
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeY2_04A7KLQtcowxcB8p89KhD2x315tXU-K-CFGbqpy2KQ-w/viewform?usp=sharing

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