Seoul National University’s Center for Contemporary Korean Studies held an international conference titled “Korea as Symptom” over two days, on August 22 and 23. As the second session of the conference, the K-Narrative Team organized a session titled “Queer Representation in Contemporary Korean Fiction” at Youngwon Hall in the Asia Center at Seoul National University. Chaired by Professor Son Yu-kyung of Seoul National University, the session featured the following two presentations.

In the first presentation, Professor Kang Sung-woon of Technische Universität Berlin addressed how male homosexuality is idealized in contemporary Korean BL (Boys’ Love) fiction in his presentation, “The Utopia of Male Homosexuality in Contemporary Korean Fictions.” In particular, he pointed out that consumers of the BL genre distinguish it from “queer fiction,” and explained the gap between the BL genre and actual LGBTQ+ experiences. He further explored queer pain and placelessness.

Next, Professor Oh Hye-jin of Sungkyunkwan University focused on the process through which Park Sang-young’s Love in the Big City has undergone media-mix adaptation in her presentation, “Geopolitical Configurations of Korean Queer Narratives and the Stalemate of Global Queer Discourse.” She analyzed how Korean queer narratives intersect with global commercial cinema and OTT dramas, showing that Korean queer politics and aesthetics exist in tension with global media systems and examining the nature of that tension.

This session focused on how queerness is represented in Korean literature and explored its social and cultural significance. It also provided a meaningful forum for examining the current position of Korean queer literature and its broader social implications.