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Read 11 hours ago and current, but nothing has been published for 24 months.
Image by Amber Lee. Adapted from screenshot taken from episode 8, season 1 of Love Alarm, 2019. Love Alarm is a high school romance drama series whose first season was released on Netflix in 2019. It features a conceit that, when read allegorically, sheds light on how technology mediates human affection. Set in contemporary Seoul, the plot to Love Alarm revolves around a mobile phone app called…
Image by Amber Lee. Adapted from Key Blue, ca. 1934, by Joseph Schillinger (Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Schillinger) and screenshot of Oh Hae-young from Another Oh Hae-young, 2016. In the 2005 K-drama My Name is Kim Sam-soon , the titular character, Kim Sam-soon, sits on a swing installed by her deceased father in the garden of their home. She remembers crying to him as a…
Image by Amber Lee. Adapted from Mandala of the Buddhist Deity Chakrasamvara , 1490 (LACMA) and concept teaser images from Taemin’s Never Gonna Dance Again: Act 2, 2020. The Mudang dons a war helmet, placing it over her head; she swings and thrusts a large sword in practiced motions. Her assistants beat their drums to wake the spirits, and the ghosts and gods in attendance open their eyes to…
Image by Amber Lee. Adapted from image of the Hunminjeongeum , 1443, by King Sejong the Great (Wikimedia Commons), Stable Diffusion - Young Woman Reading a Book in her Ruined Bedroom , 2023, by Tullius Detritus (Wikimedia Commons) and Area Broken by Perpendiculars , ca. 1943, by Joseph Schillinger (Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Schillinger). In the fall of 2021, I was…
Image by Amber Lee. Adapted from Entrance of the Gamcheon Culture Village , 2018, by Christopher95 (Wikimedia Commons), Korean Grandmother and Baby , 1945, by Don O’Brien (Wikimedia Commons), and screenshot of television screen from episode 1 of Answer Me 1988 , 2015. I was taking an undergraduate Korean language class when I first read Son Chang-sup’s 1953 short story “Rainy Days” (비오는 날).…
Editor’s Note: In her video essay, Asanti Gemeda analyzes the Lovelyz music video “WoW!” (2017) as a meta-commentary on idol commodification. By tracing the music video’s visual slippage between the idol and the paper doll, the girl group member and the K-pop photocard, Gemeda invites us to consider the idol-as-product alongside Lovelyz themselves. Permalink
Artist Statement by vvtobbi Stupidity, delusion, selfishness and lust torment our bodies and possess our minds, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Our sins are stubborn, our contrition lame; we want our scruples to be worth our while – how cheerfully we crawl back to the mire; a few cheap tears will wash our stains away! (Charles…
Image by Amber Lee. Adapted from Political Drama , 1914, by Robert Delaunay (National Gallery of Art, Gift of the Joseph H. Hazen Foundation, Inc.) and TVXQ in Paris France , 2007, fan-taken picture (Wikimedia Commons). Editor’s Note In a creatively written piece, author M. Xinyu Liu crafts an uncanny imitation of K-pop fan discourse on Reddit. Their playful rendition of the rhythms of fannish…
Image by Amber Lee. Adapted from Frieze , 1820 (Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Gift of Josephine Howell, Inc.) and Instagram ( @criticalbtsreader ) photograph of Bangtan Remixed editors at PTD LA, 2021. BTS galvanized a new influx of English-language discourse on K-pop, particularly as pertains to its transnational circulations and receptions. This interview attends to BTS’s mainstream…
Photo by Andrea Acosta. Taken at the HYBE protest in Santa Monica, CA in March 2024. I arrived at the protest an hour after it had already started. The event, organized by a collective of fans under the name “Boot The Scoot,” took place that day between 2:30–6:00 p.m. outside of the Universal Production Music offices in Santa Monica, California. It would be the first K-pop–specific, in-person…
