Global Korean pop culture

Korean Studies Electives

This course is a survey course on Korean popular culture during the past 20 years. It will explore both the production side and consumption side of “soft power” as commodities, and study the consumption/spread of Korean popular culture in Korea, Asia and the rest of the world. Our approach will be based on humanistic studies, using cultural studies, history, literary, visual studies methodologies. In order to achieve this, we will analyze different aspects of pop culture studies and production and contextualize them historically. The course will consider: fundamentals of popular culture studies, studies on globalization of “national” culture, K-pop, K-drama, musical theater, idol phenomenon, tourism, food, film, and literature.