"Reading" South Korea through Literature and Popular Culture

Summary

In this lecture, Daffy Missoula explores Korean culture through literature and popular culture, particularly K-pop. Using BTS's *Not Today* music video and the poem *Azaleas* by Kim Salwa as examples, she demonstrates analytic strategies for understanding meaning and significance in texts. The lecture highlights Korea's use of soft power to influence global audiences and emphasizes how pop culture and literature offer distinct insights into society, emotions, and ideology. Resources like the Literature Translation Institute of Korea and translated works are suggested for deeper engagement, while cautioning against treating these texts as mere historical evidence.

Takeaways

• 😀 Korean culture can be studied through both literature and popular culture, offering different but complementary insights.
• 😀 Culture includes various media such as film, literature, music, painting, and other textual or visual creations from individuals or groups.
• 😀 K-pop and other Korean cultural products contribute to Korea's soft power by creating emotional connections with global audiences.
• 😀 BTS's 'Not Today' music video demonstrates how visual elements, choreography, camera angles, and lyrics convey protest and empowerment themes.
• 😀 Code-switching between Korean and English in K-pop expands the audience and fosters global cultural connections.
• 😀 Analytical strategies for pop culture include examining mise-en-scène, music-visual interplay, fashion, lyrics, and intertextual references.
• 😀 Korean literature presents challenges in accessibility and requires higher cognitive investment, but provides rich cultural and emotional insights.
• 😀 Translation is an interpretive act; multiple translations can reveal different nuances and shape the reader's understanding of the text.
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• 😀 Poetry and literature offer insights into subjective human experiences, emotions, and cultural contexts rather than serving as primary historical evidence.
• 😀 Resources such as the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, Korean Literature Now magazine, and online translations provide valuable tools for studying Korean literature.
• 😀 Both popular culture and literature should be approached with analytical tools to uncover meanings, significance, and underlying ideological or cultural messages.

Q & A

Who is the speaker in the video and what is their area of expertise?

The speaker is Daffy Missoula, an assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford University, specializing in literature and visual culture.

How does the speaker define 'culture' in the context of the lecture?

Culture is defined as a body of work produced by a civilization, including film, literature, painting, music, and other media, which can be created by individuals, groups, or corporations and requires analytic tools to understand both its meaning and significance.

What is 'soft power' and how is it related to Korean popular culture?

Soft power is the ability of a country to gain influence and benefit through culture rather than force. Korean popular culture, such as K-pop and dramas, enhances soft power by creating emotional connections with international audiences, boosting tourism, product consumption, and favorable perceptions of Korea.

Why is BTS's 'Not Today' music video significant in the context of Korean popular culture?

The video demonstrates how K-pop conveys themes of resistance and solidarity while combining visual, musical, and lyrical elements. It uses cinematic techniques, color, fashion, and choreography to create cultural meaning and engage global audiences, exemplifying soft power in action.

What is the importance of code-switching in K-pop lyrics?

Code-switching, the use of both Korean and English in lyrics, helps K-pop connect with a broader global audience, enhancing accessibility and reinforcing the genre’s global cultural influence.

What challenges does Korean literature present compared to popular culture?

Korean literature is more difficult to access due to copyright restrictions and requires more cognitive effort to read, as it is text-based, written in Korean, and not designed for immediate consumption. It has a higher bar of entry than popular culture.

What resources did the speaker highlight for accessing Korean literature?

Key resources include the Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI) digital library, the Korean Literature Now magazine, e-books, and Brother Anthony's translations and interpretations of Korean poetry and fiction.

How does the poem 'Azaleas' by Kim Sowol help in understanding Korean culture?

The poem offers insight into personal emotions, unrequited love, and cultural expression, highlighting the subjective human experience in Korea. It also demonstrates the challenges and interpretive choices involved in translation.

What are the suggested strategies for analyzing K-pop and literature?

For K-pop, strategies include examining camera angles, choreography, lyrics, and visual style. For literature, strategies include close reading, attention to diction and emotion, and understanding historical and cultural context. Analytic tools from cultural studies, like ideology, hegemony, and hybridity, are also recommended.

Why should literature and popular culture not be treated as historical evidence?

These texts are crafted interpretations rather than factual accounts. They represent subjective experiences, emotions, and artistic choices, which may be contradictory or symbolic, rather than direct evidence of historical reality.

How can studying both literature and popular culture together enhance understanding of Korea?

Combining literature and popular culture allows for a multifaceted understanding of Korean society, showing both highbrow and lowbrow cultural expressions, emotional resonance, social critique, and global influence, revealing deeper cultural meanings than either alone.