서울대학교 현대한국종합연구단 서울대학교 현대한국종합연구단

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Research Teams

Comprised of nine research teams, each studying aspects of Korean politics, economy, technology, and culture.
We promote interdisciplinary collaboration and global academic exchange.

  • 4 results

  • Seok-Kyeog Hong

    Dr. Seok-Kyeong Hong is a professor in the Department of Communication at Seoul National University and serves as the director of the Center for Hallyu Studies at the Seoul National University Asia Center. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Grenoble in France with a dissertation on the pragmatic analysis of reality constructions of TV. Her research interests include digital cultural forms and practices, visual culture and visual methodology, Korean popular culture, and Hallyu within regional and global dynamics. From 2000 to 2013, as an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the Université de Bordeaux, France, she conducted large-scale research on multicultural citizenship in France using visual methodology. During this period, she also began field research on the Hallyu phenomenon globally. Since joining Seoul National University in 2013, she has been researching Korean popular culture and Hallyu, as well as digital media practices and cultural forms. Major publications include Hallyu in Globalization and Digital Culture Era (『세계화와 디지털 문화 시대의 한류』, 2013), BTS on the Road (『BTS 길 위에서』, 2020), which has been translated into Japanese, Vietnamese, Indonesian, English, and French. She edited  All About Drama ( 『드라마의 모든 것』2017) and co-edited  Visual Culture and Ethics in the Digital Age (『디지털시대 영상문화와 윤리』, 2023) and  Transnational Convergence of East Asian Pop Culture (2021). She currently holds a series of international conferences and publications on Netflix and, alongside the Hallyu Global Scholars Research Network, conducts diverse research in order to theorize Korea's popular culture industry and the Hallyu phenomenon worldwide.

  • Younghan Cho

    Dr. Younghan Cho is a professor in Korean Studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Korea. He received his Ph.D. degree in Communication Studies from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Asia Research Institute at National University of Singapore. Dr. Cho’s research interests include media and cultural studies, global sports and nationalism, and East Asian pop culture and modernity, and cultural economy in Korean and Asian contexts. His publications include Yellow Pacific: Multiple Modernities and East Asia (『옐로우 퍼시픽: 다중적 근대성과 동아시아』, Seoul National University Press, 2020), Exploring Hallyu: History and Theory (『한류 탐색: 역사와 이론』, Culture Look, 2024), and Global Sports Fandom in South Korea (Palgrave, 2020). He is the founding editor of Palgrave's Series on Sport in Asia.

  • Jiyoung Suh

    Dr. Jiyoung Suh is a research fellow at the Center for Hallyu Studies, Seoul National University Asia Center, and a lecturer at Yonsei University's Underwood International College and Department of Korean Language and Literature. She earned her BA in English Literature, MA, and PhD in Korean Language and Literature from Sogang University, and a PhD in Asian Studies (Korean Cultural History) from the University of British Columbia. Currently, she is exploring the connection between popular culture and gender by examining the roles of female artists in both the Joseon Dynasty and modern times and researching the historical formation of ‘celebrity’ in Korean contexts. Her research papers include “Modern Media and the Formation of Gisaeng Celebrity: Focusing on the Concept of Public Intimacy” (2023), “The Arenas of Popular Arts in the 1930s and the Public Representation of Gisaeng” (2023), and “Layers of Representation in Yeoak (Female Music): A Study on Gisaeng as Performers in the Joseon Dynasty” (2021). The monograph includes Modern Girls of Gyeongseong: Colonial Modernity through Consumption, Labor, and Gender (『경성의 모던걸: 소비, 노동, 젠더로 본 식민지 근대』, Yeoiyeon, 2013); Japanese translation, 京城のモダンガル: 消費· 労働·女性から見た植民地近代 (Misuzu Shobo, 2016). Her translation includes Kim Chang-nam's The History of Korean Popular Culture (Brill, 2025).

  • Sojeong Park

    Dr. Sojeong Park is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Culture Contents at Hanyang University ERICA. She received her MA and PhD in Communication from Seoul National University and specializes in popular and digital culture. Engaging with television, film, idols, and online communities, she integrates her scholarly passion with her profession. Her research focuses on issues of identity and intimacy observed through media culture, employing qualitative methods such as discourse analysis and interviews. She has conducted extensive studies on the production and consumption of Hallyu and K-content, as well as the discourses and values that emerge in these processes. In addition, she teaches and writes on the characteristics of content and audience cultures shaped by emerging digital platforms. Her book Mibaek: The Cultural Politics of Skin Color (『미백: 피부색의 문화정치』)—recognized as a Distinguished Scholarly Book by the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Korea (2022) and shortlisted for the ICAS Outstanding Korean Academic Book (2023)—advances a postcolonial interpretation of skin-brightening and K-beauty, central aesthetics of Korean media culture. Building on this foundation, she is currently exploring how issues of race and ethnicity intersect with the media environment, with particular focus on the “ethno-mediascapes” of Korea and East Asia.