The SNU Center for Contemporary Korean Studies held an international conference titled “Korea as Symptom” over two days, August 22 and 23. As the final session of the conference, the K-Narrative Team organized a panel titled “Korean Narratives Today II” in Room 240 of Building 101 at Seoul National University. Chaired by Hyung-Kook Song, a KBS journalist and film critic, the session featured two presentations.

The first speaker was Jeremiah Estela Magonica (Ateneo de Manila University), who presented “Korea as a Narrative: Digital Mediation Through True Crime.” Magonica approached Korea as a symptomatic site of global anxiety and examined this phenomenon within the context of digital culture. Focusing particularly on true crime content, he explored how local Korean traumas are translated into narratives capable of eliciting global resonance, thereby revealing points of connection between Korean and Western sensibilities.

The second presentation was delivered by Julin Lee (University of Music and Theatre Munich) under the title “In Perfect Harmony? Constructing Complex Female Characters and Their Relationships Through Music in K-Dramas.” Lee examined the role of music in shaping both narrative and audience reception within the K-romance genre. Bringing together approaches from popular music studies, screen music studies, and postfeminism, the presentation analyzed the relationship between music and female characters and argued that music functions as a crucial medium for constructing complex female characters and developing narratives of their relationships.

The session provided an opportunity to examine how Korean narratives are reconfigured through digital culture and popular music. By bringing together two distinct cases—the true crime genre and music in K-romance—it assembled different fragments of Korean storytelling and contributed to a broader understanding of the narratives through which contemporary Korea is imagined and represented.