K-pop is a form of popular music whose significance goes beyond its financial success. In January 2021, Esquire published Emma Carey‘s article, “The Best Pop Bands of All Time Prove the Universal Power of Music,” which acknowledged the slippery nature of the label of “pop,” but also declared: “In simple terms, pop music is literally….
Tag: K-pop
Writing about K-pop: Choose Your Disciplinary Adventure
In my previous article, I talked about how taking a historian’s approach to K-pop considers the past in making sense of the present. In this article, I’ll discuss how this informs my approach to K-pop in my book Soul in Seoul: African American Popular Music and K-pop. In making sense of K-pop, I choose several…
Writing About K-pop: History and Context
One of the first things I wanted to do with my book, Soul in Seoul: African American Popular Music and K-pop, is to recognize K-pop’s history and development. Placing K-pop within a historical context is crucial to the way we ultimately understand it. K-pop is often seen in present-day terms. It is described and treated…
Teaching K-pop, Part 1: The Most Important Thing
Before deciding on all the cool content to include in my course, KORE 320: Korean Popular Culture, there is one thing that I had to do, something that forms the foundation of the course. Figuring out this one thing made designing the course easier and will make for more effective learning for students. It was…
What K-pop Can Teach Us About Engagement for Online Courses
One of the most common concerns about moving courses online is that engagement is lost. However, it could be useful to draw on the kind of engagement that is central to contemporary Korean popular music (K-pop) culture. Most articles you may read about the need to teach online courses (as opposed to the emergency remote…
Mission Impossible: Curating the History of K-pop
Some of us are using this unprecedented time to work on projects that have gotten away from us. My latest project, KPOPCULTURE, a never ending quest to create a history of K-pop, is one such project! From KPOPIANA to the Kpop Collaboration Project, I have been working on projects that seek to document and describe…
Labor from Below: What Neoliberal Capitalism Overlooks in K-pop (from KPK: Kpop Kollective)
Scholars frequently use the neoliberal capitalism frame to contextualize K-pop within the Korean wave, but the over-reliance on critiquing capitalist forces further silences the creative personnel of K-pop. If we approach K-pop using the “history from below” framework, we can reveal the perspectives of the individuals in the industry.
PROJECT UPDATE: The Music of SHINee
The Music of SHINee is a digital exhibit, part of the digital humanities project KPOPCULTURE. It provides an overview of the music of K-pop group SHINee, including promotional tracks as well as deep cuts and song credit information. Research is one of the most inefficient processes on the planet, and mine is no exception. While…
Research Challenges Perception That K-pop Is Defined By Single Fandom
The K-pop fandom landscape has changed in the past few years. Data suggests that the general K-pop “idol” fandom is more divided than it was less than 10 years ago and challenges some widely held notions about the preferences of global K-pop fans. Read more at KPK: Kpop Kollective…..
“Conflicting Desires: K-pop Idol Girl Groups Flows in Japan in the Era of Web 2.0,” Sun Jung and Yukie Hirata
Sun Jung and Yukie Hirata use the experience of the female K-pop group Girls’ Generation (SNSD) in Japan as a case study to examine how K-pop represents a different kind of transcultural flows and consumption. . . Read more at Public Circulation!
“Playing the Race and Sexuality Cards in the Transnational Pop Game: Korean Music Videos for the US Market,” Eun-Young Jung
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!
“The Globalization of K-pop: Korea’s Place in the Global Music Industry,” Ingyu Oh
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…
