Activities

ICCK-Overview

2024 SNU International Conference for Contemporary Korean Studies

2024-08-29

The SNU Center for Contemporary Korean Studies will host The 1st International Conference for Contemporary Korean Studies on August 23–24, 2024, at Youngone Hall, SNU Asia Center.

Bringing together scholars working across culture, the arts, religion, history, politics, society, technology, and other fields, the conference will explore contemporary Korea from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. It also aims to provide a forum for scholars from Korea and abroad to engage across disciplinary and geographical boundaries and to build new networks for collaborative research.

We warmly invite members of the SNU community, researchers, and all those interested in contemporary Korea to join us.

Event Information

  • Event: The 1st International Conference for Contemporary Korean Studies
  • Date & Time:
    August 23 (Fri), 2024, 09:30–18:50
    August 24 (Sat), 2024, 10:00–18:10
  • Venue: Youngone Hall, SNU Asia Center, Seoul National University
  • Format: In person and livestreamed on YouTube
  • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SNUCKS2024
  • Contact: snucks@snu.ac.kr

August 23 (Friday) — Conference Day 1

09:30–10:00 | Opening Ceremony

Moderator: Hyeong-ki Kwon
Professor and Director, SNU Contemporary Korean Studies, Seoul National University

Welcome Address: Honglim Ryu
President, Seoul National University

10:00–11:50 | Session 1

Reimagining Korea: Identity and Values in a Changing World and Korea in Transition

  1. Grace Kao (Yale University, USA)
    “K-Pop’s Place on the US Billboard Hot 100 Chart”
  2. Liora Sarfati (Tel Aviv University, Israel)
    “The Cosmopolitan Vernacular: Korean Shamans (Mudang) in the Global Spirituality Market”
  3. Merose Hwang (Hiram College, USA)
    “The Ethics of Grief: Reflections on Recent Youth Deaths in South Korea”

13:00–15:00 | Session 2

Political Economy from a Comparative-Historical Perspective

  1. Stephen Haggard (University of California, San Diego, USA)
    “Lineages of the Developmental State: New Evidence, New Policies”
  2. Yong Chool Ha (University of Washington, USA)
    “Distinctiveness of South Korea’s Modernization: Tradition as a Bridge Between Political Economy and Sociology”
  3. Keun Lee (Seoul National University) & Djun Kil Kim (Seoul National University)
    “Compressed Development, Decompression, and Diverging Convergence in South Korea: Which Varieties of Capitalism in Contemporary Korea?”
  4. Elizabeth Thurbon (University of New South Wales, Australia) & Alexander M. Hynd (University of New South Wales, Australia)
    “Green Energy Statecraft in the Indo-Pacific: New Rules at the Techno-Industrial Frontier”
  5. Yin-wah Chu (Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong)
    “The Developmental States of South Korea and Taiwan: Core Features and Divergent Trajectories”
  6. Jaeyong Song (Seoul National University)
    “Evolution of Technology Sourcing Strategies of Korean Electronics Companies: The Case of Samsung Electronics”
  7. Kyung Mi Kim (Seoul National University) & Hyeong-ki Kwon (Seoul National University)
    “Divergent Evolution of Statist Coordination Models: A Comparison of Japan and Korea”

15:10–17:00 | Session 3

The Masterplots of K-Narrative

  1. Spencer Lee-Lenfield (Harvard University, USA)
    “How the Korean Diaspora Became the Dominant Force in Korean-English Literary Translation”
  2. Hannah Kim (Arizona University, USA)
    “The Unexpected Perils of Pervasive Story Telling”
  3. Shin Hyoung Cheol (Seoul National University)
    “For a Fair Re(dis)tribution of Pain: Meritocracy and Vigilantism in K-Narrative”
  4. Youkyung Son (Seoul National University)
    “When Korean Literature Encounters ‘K’: Exploring the (Dis)Harmony between Korean and ‘K’ Literature”
  5. Hyeongguk Song (Korean Broadcasting System)
    “(De)Globalization and Transformation of the Masterplot in K-Cinema”
  6. Kyung Hee Youn (Seoul National University)
    “Accompanying the Specters: Fictional Narratives about the Sewol Ferry Disaster”

17:10–18:50 | Session 4

K-Future

  1. Kim Hong Jung (Seoul National University)
    “Toward a Symptomatology of K-Future”
  2. Nathalie Luca (National Center for Scientific Research, Center for Social Research on Religion, France)
    “What Is Optimism?”

August 24 (Saturday) — Conference Day 2

10:00–11:50 | Session 5

Korean Modernity and the History of Development

  1. Dong-won Lee (Seoul National University)
    “Introduction: History of Aid and Development in Korea”
  2. Jong-Chol An (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy)
    “Continuity and Discontinuity in Korean Developmentalism?: Land Taking Regime during the 1930s–70s”
  3. Bong-Seok Han (Pukyong National University, South Korea)
    “The Birth of Modern Koreans, Nutrition, and Surplus Produce: How the Dream of Land Reform Was Replaced by Taking Vitamins”
  4. Changkeun Lee (KDI School of Public Policy and Management, South Korea)
    “Political Democratization and Growing Economic Inequality”
  5. Hojye Kang (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany)
    “The ‘New Century’ Discourse in North Korea”

13:00–15:00 | Session 6

Global Perspectives on Hallyu

  1. Seok-Kyeong Hong (Seoul National University)
    “Introduction: Theorizing Hallyu”
  2. Younghan Cho (Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea)
    “Institutionalizing Hallyu Studies: De-colonial Knowledge Production through the Historical Landscape of East Asian Pop Culture”
  3. Haekyung Um (University of Liverpool, UK)
    “When Does the Korean Wave Become Cultural Heritage?: Selective Canonization and Institutionalization of South Korean Popular Culture”
  4. Sungmin Kim (Hokkaido University, Japan)
    “Hallyu in Japan: Recategorizing Popular Music and Identities”
  5. Sojeong Park (Seoul National University)
    “Decolonizing Beauty?: A Postcolonial Perspective on K-Beauty”

15:10–16:40 | Session 7

Exploring Contemporary Korean Music: From Traditional to Classical to K-Pop and Everything in Between

  1. Anna Yates-Lu (Seoul National University)
    “Introduction”
  2. Keith Howard (University of London, UK)
    “Shifts and Stasis in the Promotion of Kugak: Observing and Interacting with Korean Music, 1979–2024”
  3. Nancy Yunhwa Rao (Rutgers University, USA)
    “Classicism and Inter-Asian Collaboration in Contemporary Music”

16:50–18:20 | Roundtable Discussion

List