Special Issue: Understanding of the phenomenon of the “Korean Wave” or Hallyu
Posted on 2024-06-16
In this special issue of the Journal Committed to Social Change on Race and Ethnicity (JCSCORE) we are interested in critical, interdisciplinary contributions that extend our understanding of the phenomenon of the “Korean Wave” or Hallyu. We understand Hallyu to be the varied global popular cultural forms emanating from South Korea that includes K-pop, K-dramas, K-film, K-beauty, and more. While Hallyu has recently gained a tremendous amount of popular, media, and academic attention, we welcome contributions from a wide array of theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary approaches. We invite submissions that engage Hallyu within the framework of race, ethnicity, and social change and transformation. How and what might Hallyu contribute to the study of race, ethnicity, and social justice?
Possible topics include but are not limited to:
- What can critical analyses of individual films, dramas, food, music, or beauty tell us about the intersections of race, ethnicity, class, culture, gender, sexuality, politics, and religion?
- How and why do Korean recording artists represent their lives across multiple digital platforms (YouTube, vlogs, music videos, variety shows, Instagram, TikTok, etc.)? How do these platforms enable them to engage with issues of visibility and marketing in the recording industry? How do they reshape our conception of the relationship between artist and audience?
- How is K-Pop exploring and advancing Asian/American aesthetics and performance styles through musical and visual representation?
- What can Hallyu tell us about cultural (and artistic) expression, authenticity, and appropriation?
- What can food tell us about cross-cultural connections and belonging? What are the dynamics around cultural appropriation of Korean food and contemporary culinary movements? What are the social, political, economic, environmental, and historical factors in the development of Korean foodways?
- How does K-pop, K-dramas, K-film, and K-beauty help us understand interracial engagements (e.g. Blackness and Black people in K-dramas)?
- What roles do language and language use play in films, dramas, music in production, performances, and narratives? For example, what can Japanese and English language versions of songs tell us about fandom, popularity, and the global production, distribution, and consumption of culture.