Eun-Young Jung examines how the visuals of Korean music videos by BoA, Wonder Girls and Rain play on “racialized notions of sexuality” and “sexualized notions of racial identity.” . . . . Read more at Public Circulation!
Category: Project Updates
Ingyu Oh challenges approaches to Korean popular music based on cultural hybridity by arguing that the globalization of K-pop involves modifying musical content from Europe and other locations into Korean content and redistributing it to global audiences. In doing to, it occupies a void between Western and East Asian music industries. . . . read more at Public Circulation!
David Brackett examines the porous nature of genres in music. Instead of being fixed, the boundaries between music genres are not defined and are subject to transition over time. . . . Read more at Public Circulation!
Jon Fitzgerald argues for a more significant place of the Motown sound within popular music history by focusing on its innovative creative process. . . . Read more at Public Circulation!
Shin Hyunjoon explores the relationship between globalization and regionalization in K-pop, focusing on the Korean music industry and star management and reactions from media and fans. . . . Read more at Public Circulation!
David Goldblatt argues that vocal rhythm and blues, or doo-wop, is impacted by race, class and location. Characterized by its nonsense syllables in a cappella songs, doo-wop is defined by its origins as public singing in urban neighborhoods. . . . Read more at Public Circulation!
What good are ideas if we don’t share them? As scholars, we research, write and publish in increasingly inaccessible spaces: journals behind paywalls and scholarly books with steep price tags. The fewer individuals who interact with ideas, the more constrained our notion of those ideas. This reminds me of how Lawrence Levine describes the state of cultural curators in the late 19th century in Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America: “The spokesmen for culture at the turn of the century were less missionaries than conservators, less bent upon eradicating the culture gap between themselves and the majority than on steadfastly maintaining that gap” (218).
In an effort to promote the democratization of knowledge and encourage my own scholarship, I’ve started a new project that uses one of my Omeka sites to create a searchable, annotated bibliography. It’s called Public Circulation and draws on a concept in architecture that describes connecting elements in a building, such as hallways and galleries, that encourage access to other spaces in the structure. In the same way, Public Circulation will serve to give a measure of access to ideas that inform my own work.
Yes, I know I could use a tool like Zotero to accomplish the same thing with less labor, but I chose to use my Omeka site for a couple of reasons. First, I like how Omeka will let me curate collections of sources, which will also help me connect ideas in the texts that I read. It will also let me play with Canva to attach files to the items to make them more visually appealing! Most importantly, I can share my growing bibliography with everyone, thereby accomplishing greater access to more ideas.
Be on the lookout for posts from Public Circulation!
Levine, Lawrence W. Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988.
When I go to conferences, I often end up answering questions from members of the audience after the presentation. Or, I’ll have random conversation with students from other institutions about my work. I’m happy to give others the benefit of my 18+ experience in academia as an active researcher of cultural studies. But why wait for a conference? If you are an undergraduate or graduate student, ask me your questions here, and I’ll tell you what I know! I won’t post your name, but if I can answer your question, I’ll post the question and answer. You can ask me about my work (see the site!), the research process and the college experience!
iFans: Mapping K-pop’s International Fandom is a digital project that examines the attitudes, practices and creative output of global K-pop fans. VIPs (as fans of BigBang are called) were given the opportunity to participate in an online interview with questions geared toward their experience as BigBang fans. Whale, a VIP, wrote about the criticisms about BigBang as well as the group’s status as an idol group. Read more here….
S.E.S is an acronym for “Sea, Eugene, Shoo,” the names of the three members of the group. Formed in 1997 by SM Entertainment, this female group consisted of Sea (better known as Bada, born Choi Sung Hee), Eugene (Kim Yoo Jin) and Shoo (Yoo Soo Young) and became the first successful female group in the Hallyu K-pop era. . . . See the entire exhibit at Hallyu Harmony: A Cultural History of Kpop.
