CedarBough T Saeji

This study investigates the ways the South Korean government and other affiliated organizations use the popular practice of performing choreography to Korean popular music, or K-pop cover dance, to build nationalism in Koreans and soft power for Korea overseas. Cover dances generally have one benefit for the original performers; covers can strengthen the perception of popularity of a song or a group. However, the benefits that accrue elsewhere are wide-ranging. Dance instructors may find eager paying learners, university classes may recruit new students, and the Republic of Korea harnesses the enthusiasm of dancers to promote everything related to Korea. This study, a continuation of my long-term work on cover dance, is based on a close reading of the KBS television program K-Pop World Festival 2018. The larger project includes observation of cover dancers at practice and in cover dance competitions, interviews with organizers, Korean diplomats, dance professionals in the K-pop world, and cover dance participants, as well as online data collection. As Korea struggles with a low economic growth rate, high youth unemployment, and a host of social problems that are increasing bitterness and dissatisfaction, the KBS program and similar cultural productions provide a different perspective on Korea. In this paper I argue that the coverage of K-pop fans from around the world on Korean television essentializes foreign places and people with a singular focus: to
prove the attractiveness of Korea to a Korean audience.

In recent years, K-pop idols have increasingly served as ambassadors of Korea to a world audience. One novel aspect of this ambassadorship is their role as presenters of Korean traditional culture, even though they frequently know little about the traditions in question. In this paper, I conduct a close reading of the K-Community Festival 2021 as an example of a program in which K-pop idols introduce their viewers to traditional Korean arts by presenting themselves as inexpert learners. This festival, with its contradictory positioning of the idols as spokespeople for Korea who need instruction in Korean tradition, appeals to viewers by inviting the audience to identify with the idols, emphasizing its entertainment value, and using the idols as cultural intermediaries. I argue that in doing so, it devalues cultural expertise and the essentialization of tradition. Nevertheless, this and similar programs serve an important function for fans in that they offer a cultural product that can be consumed in opposition to the hegemonic cultural flows from the United States.

Popular culture texts not only entertain us, they shape our understanding of the world and our place in it. This article explores the contradictions and effects of the use of imagined and real Korean settings and traditional iconography in recent videos from Korean hip hop artists with a particularly close reading of the rapper Beenzino’s mid-2016 offering ‘January’, additionally informed by Drunken Tiger’s ‘Mantra’, MC Mong’s ‘Fame’ and Agust D’s ‘Daechwita’. The videos each utilize settings that signify Koreanness and feature significant symbols of Korea. I investigate what symbols and icons are used to take a foreign genre and imbue it with Koreanness within the music video frame. I find that these videos circulate and re-circulate a limited number of icons of Korea, because the images are meant not to portray pre-modern Korea in its complexity, but traditional Korea both as a symbol of national pride and as a (domestic and international) tourist destination wherein the palace is a backdrop and you wear a hanbok to create a visually striking Instagram post. Operating as the king of the music video’s world, the hip hop artist maintains his artistic independence through challenging tradition with
juxtaposed elements of the present day.

[First paragraph]
Korean popular music (K-pop) is intentionally packed with intertextuality, which at the most basic level means that it is constantly making references to other cultural texts.1 Julia Kristeva coined the term intertextuality in the 1960s, and others, including Roland Barthes and Richard Bauman, expanded upon the concept. Although originally used to discuss actual written textual works, intertextuality has been productively applied to music since the 1980s.2 Music industry scholar Keith Negus has explained how intertextuality in music is completely unavoidable because “songs are heard alongside and in relation to other songs,”3 while John Fiske, a television scholar, introduced ways to use intertexuality in media research.4 This article uses the term intertextuality throughout, whereas in other discussions, the related term “intermediality” is sometimes employed to explain relationships between different types of media—such as a music video referencing a book, a character in a movie who is a fan of a pop artist, or a pop artist who also appears as an actor in a TV drama. This short paper does not purport to educate the reader on the large number of studies on musical intertextuality that have been carried out in recent decades. Rather, it introduces, with examples, the ways intertextuality most often manifests within the context of idol K-pop.5 I argue that the production style of K-pop increases intertextuality. I assert that intertextuality in K-pop can fall within two broad categories—either it is designed as a shorthand reference to connect K-pop to other media with which the audience may be familiar, or it is designed to more densely connect K-pop fans to the media products of the artists. The intertextuality can be strategically voiced by the artists and their gihoeksa (entertainment agency), or equally strategically it can be left to the fans to uncover.

The National Museum of Korea (NMK) is a site for teaching its visitors about the
wonders of the Korean past through exhibition of exemplary art works. Through
participant-observation in a Korean art history program organized by the NMK,
museum visits, an interview with a senior curator, and an analysis of the NMK’s self published book 100 Highlights of the National Museum of Korea, I interrogate the museum’s ideology in order to gain a better understanding of the messages about Koreanness communicated to the museum’s visitors. I am interested in the curatorial choices made by the museum that may ideologically condition spectators to associate Korean artistic excellence with Buddhism. I combine an analysis of language used in curation of Buddhist art on museum labels and displays, and within the NMK’s self-published book of 100 museum highlights, with a discussion that illustrates how the NMK creates new regimes of value in its presentation of Buddhist objects as national heritage.

In the past two decades, Korean Studies has expanded to become an interdisciplinary and increasingly international field of study and research. While new undergraduate
Korean Studies programs are opening at universities in the Republic of Korea (ROK) and intensifying multi-lateral knowledge transfers, this process also reveals the lack of a clear identity that continues to haunt the field. In this autoethnographic essay, I examine the possibilities and limitations of framing Korea as an object of study for diverse student audiences, looking towards potential futures for the field. I focus on 1) the struggle to escape the nation-state boundaries implied in the habitual terminology, particularly when teaching in the ROK, where the country is unmarked (“Han’guk”), the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is marked (“Pukhan”), and the diaspora is rarely mentioned at all; 2) the implications of the expansion of Korean Studies as a major within the ROK; 3) in-class navigations of Korean national pride, the trap of Korean uniqueness and  self-)orientalization and attitudes toward the West; 4) the negotiation of my own status as a white American researching/teaching about Korea, often to Koreans; 5) reactions to the (legitimate) demands of undergraduate Korean Studies majors to define the field and its future employment opportunities. Finally, I raise some questions about teaching methodologies in Korean Studies. Drawing on my experiences with diverse groups of students, I ask those involved in this field to consider with me the challenges emerging in a time of rapid growth.

The Republic of Korea’s robust system for protection of traditional performing arts has insulated the traditional arts, ensuring that a population of master artists continued to practice their arts even as Korea rapidly modernized. This protection allows people in twenty-first century Seoul to attend performances of raucous mask dance dramas,
evocative epic songs, and sedate literati ensembles. However, do they? The audience for Korean traditional arts is eroding, but ample government support has removed artists and venues from the urgency of attracting new and younger audiences. This article describes reception techniques of traditional performance that are dying out in Korea, proposes an audience typology, and discusses the varied challenges of attracting and maintaining an audience.  Although examples are taken from Korea, parallels exist in other countries and with other genres around the world.

The National Museum of Korea (NMK) is a site for teaching its visitors about the wonders of the Korean past through exhibition of exemplary art works. Through participant-observation in a Korean art history program organized by the NMK, museum visits, an interview with a senior curator, and an analysis of the NMK's self-published book 100 Highlights of the National Museum of Korea, I interrogate the museum's ideology in order to gain a better understanding of the messages about Koreanness communicated to the museum's visitors. I am interested in the curatorial choices made by the museum that may ideologically condition spectators to associate Korean artistic excellence with Buddhism. I combine an analysis of language used in curation of Buddhist art on museum labels and displays, and within the NMK's self-published book of 100 museum highlights, with a discussion that illustrates how the NMK creates new regimes of value in their presentation of Buddhist objects as national heritage.

The wide-spread sexual objectification of women in Korean popular music performance subconsciously teaches men and boys that women and girls are sexual objects that exist to please them. Simultaneously sexual objectification disempowers girls
and women by emphasizing superficial beauty. Although many decisions related to Kpop choreography, costumes, or lyrics may be attributed to music management companies, this paper analyzes how music television programs Inkigayo (Seoul
Broadcasting System) and Music Core (Munhwa Broadcasting Company) contribute to the sexual objectification of women through the ways that emcees frame performances and the ways the camera draws attention to sexualized body parts. In August 2012 racy performances by the girl group Kara raised public debate and spurred calls for amendments to the Juvenile Protection Law. At that time commentary focused on the impact of sexually provocative performances on young people. The law places responsibility for monitoring content onto the content producers and broadcasters, yet frame analysis of Kara’s performances, compared with performances in early 2013, demonstrated that neither Inkigayo nor Music Core had changed the sexually objectifying performance frame on their shows. The final version of the revised law, passed in March 2013, does not contain amendments to address these issues more stringently than in the past.

The Republic of Korea has been protecting the ephemeral performative artistic and cultural phenomena collectively labeled intangible cultural heritage since Korea passed the Cultural Property Protection Law in 1962. The long history of performance protection in Korea has positioned Korea as an example for efforts around the world to protect intangible cultural heritage. The focus of Korean protection efforts is performance and transmission; this paper addresses the transmission occurring through intensive camps. Participant-observation based ethnographic research was conducted at two sites, the mask dance drama Kosŏng Ogwangdae and the farmer's drumming and dancing group Imshil P'ilbong Nongak to determine the effectiveness of the camps in transmitting performing arts knowledge. The young people who enroll in these camps represent the future of the Korean traditional performing arts; some are bound for professional performance or membership in the groups. The camps employ the performers and also create a pool of audience members and arts advocates. The students of the camps build community while they time travel to a liminal space where every day is the day before or the day of the big festival; their positive experience of Korean tradition leaves them connected to and supportive of the traditional arts.

K-Pop, oder koreanische Popmusik, ist eines der spannendsten kulturellen Formate. Es ijemandem zu erklären, der die Form nicht kennt, kann jedoch etwas kompliziert sein. Dieses viel gehörte (und gesehene) musikalische Format kombiniert gebräuchliche Wendungen, einfache Instrumentation und Konventionen, die man in Popmusik rund um die Welt hören kann, innerhalb eines territorial verorteten oder hybridisierten Formats. Es ist kein Genreder K-Pop-Sound ist sehr variabel, und gerade fließende Genregrenzen sind eines der ersten Merkmale, das die Fans in ihm antreffen. Ein-und dieselbe Gruppe, oder sogar ein-und dasselbe Album, können verschiedene Genres zeigen. Populäre Songs in letzter Zeit kombinierten Elemente aus Trap, Reggae, R&B, langsamen Balladen, Alternativ-Rock und natürlich Hip-Hop im selben Album. 1

[The chapter begins with this vignette]
A precisely coiffed shaman faced the audience; at her back a long altar covered with food offerings and elaborate displays of vibrantly colored paper flowers. At the center of the altar was a seolgyeong, cut out paper figures of the deceased, and to each side there were photos and small name tablets used in Korean memorial rituals. This o-gu-gut, a ritual traditionally used to send souls to the other side, was being held for all the deceased members of the Gangneung Danoje Preservation Association. The name tablets and photographs represented those who had achieved the highest rank before their passing. In front of the shaman were musicians, arranged in a U shape, with the shaman at the open end of the U and the most important musician, the player of the hourglass drum, in the center with his back to the audience. As this o-gu-gut, part of a celebration of the 10th anniversary of UNESCO designation for Gangneung Danoje, began to hit its stride, the shaman Kim Dongyeon chanted about Sin Seoknam, a now-deceased National Human Treasure, and one of Kim’s teachers. Repeatedly she referenced cultural policy: “She protected our culture . . . wah-wah-wah,” she sing-cried, “She would want to know that now we have many advanced learners . . . wah-wah-wah . . . she passed away before we got UNESCO designation . . . wah-wah-wah.” Throughout this act in the ritual the UNESCO designation of Gangneung’s Dano Festival was held up as a great success and achievement, something that the shamans leading the ceremony regret that the deceased never saw.

[In lieu of an abstract, here are the first two paragraphs]
Before COVID-19, in large urban centers around the world, it was not unusual to spot a group of dancers re-creating the choreography showcased in live performances and music videos of K-pop. This eye-catching fan practice demonstrates the popularity of K-pop to the public who encounter dancers inside and outside shopping centers, in school playgrounds, in parking lots, and in public parks. Why is dance such a large part ofK-pop, and offan engagement with the music? What has motivated the participants? Where did the dance emphasis in international K-pop come from? Live performances and music videos of K-pop are visually compelling in large part because ofan emphasis on precise synchronized dance. Dance has become so essential to the performance of K-pop that certain groups and solo performers perform dance live while lip-synching to the music, in order to please the audience with perfect choreography unmarred by breathy vocal delivery. This emphasis on dance is not new. In the gogo clubs of the 1970s and the nightclubs of the 1980s and onward, people listened to live music while dancing. Koreans also foregrounded dance in the way they spoke about pop music. From the late 1980s, before terms like keipap (K-pop) and aidolpap (idol pop), Koreans commonly divided popular music into two main types: balladeu (slow songs of love and heartbreak) and daenseu eumak (songs with a strong beat meant to dance to). By the late 1980s, it was common for top artists to include a dance company performing behind them when they sang on Korean live television shows. Some singers participated in the dancing, like the undeniable darling of the time period, Wanseon Kim. In their 1992 debut, Seo Taiji and Boys, widely lauded as the first K-pop group, incorporated choreographed hip hop–influenced dance moves into their performances, and such moves have since become the industry standard. As the years have passed, the dances performed by K-pop groups have become more prominent, and their precision, speed, and difficulty have increased.

This isn't an abstract, it's the start of the introduction:

In 2013 and early 2014, popular music from the Republic of Korea (hereafter Korea), known as K-pop by its many fans, has increasingly incorporated obvious non-Koreans (white, black, and Latino/a) into music videos. These individuals are typically back-up dancers or characters in the story shown in the video. This diversity has emerged—in the genres that have been subsumed into the bricolage of K-pop, in the production teams, and increasingly in the performers themselves. K-pop, practical to the core, has so far subscribed to the cultural diversification of performers only within a narrow frame: performers should look Korean, but major groups now include performers who are Korean-American, Korean-Thai, Chinese, and even Chinese-American. Other performers have lived abroad, and may be better able to appeal to foreign audiences.
Throughout this paper I use the term ‘foreign dancing body.’ By ‘foreign,’ I mean ‘visually identifiable as not being of primarily East Asian descent.’ Further, I use the term ‘dancing’ although some of these individuals are not actually dancing, but acting a part or even singing.  This choice is a deliberate one. Even when these performers are not dancing per se, in the sense of specific dance movements, they are still dancing in two senses: they are moving at the choreographed direction of another person, and their movements serve the overwhelming focus of promoting the song and artist(s) that headline the video.
What is significant about the presence of these foreign dancing bodies in K-pop is that they are intensely interwoven with power dynamics. Just as ‘dance is an area where, as embodied beings, we negotiate the social and cultural discourses through which gender and sexuality are maintained’ (Burt 2007: 16), K-pop music videos are an area where the dance of racialized others demonstrates Korean social and cultural ideologies of race, gender, and sexuality. [paragraph continues...]

This invited talk on March 10th, 2016 covers six majors subtopics: the evolution and changes in the status of women in Korean society (covering substantially changes in education, workplace culture and women's autonomy), media narratives in the present moment that reinforce conventional gender roles and objectify women, the Comfort Women issue, sex work in Korea, demographic changes (and how these are driving many experiences of women and can be used to predict future challenges), and finally marriage migrants.

The effectiveness of dance as a tool of engagement was demonstrated when Psy's "Gangnam Style" effectively substituted dancing along for singing along, but K-pop cover dance is much more than local adaptations like "Boston Style" and "Farmer Style." K-pop attracts dance hobbyists to become K-pop cover dancers, others become dance hobbyists through their fandom. These dancers use the language of dance to grow closer to the stars and engage with the music, and in some cases, develop new careers tied to the dance. Cover dance is encouraged by the K-pop management companies who upload either two slick music videos, one focusing on choreography, or upload a video of the stars rehearsing (often timed to build excitement before a release). In this paper I explore the trans-consumerism of fan engagement with music videos through observing their uploaded dance covers, online discussions, a survey and follow-up interviews with avid cover dancers and cover dance instructors. This examination reveals that cover dance exists in a symbiotic and parasitic relationship with the K-pop stars/management companies and the Korean government's soft power cultural policy. The cover dance industry both benefits from K-pop's popularity without investing as heavily as idols do and promotes its popularity through activities in areas overlooked in K-pop "world" tours.

The National Museum of Korea (NMK) is a site for teaching Korean and foreign visitors about the wonders of the Korean past through exhibition of exemplary art works. After more than twenty visits to the galleries in 2013 and 2014, lectures by museum staff members and art experts, an interview with a senior curator, and an analysis of the NMK's self-published book 100 Highlights of the National Museum of Korea, I interrogate the museum's ideology in order to gain a better understanding of the messages about Koreanness communicated to visitors of the museum. Of course, no matter how carefully the NMK plans text and displays, visitors may leave the museum understanding something entirely different. This is why I am interested in the degree to which spectators are ideologically conditioned to associate Korean artistic excellence with Buddhism, whether the curation team intended this or not. I combine a quantified rendering of language used to refer to Buddhism and Confucianism  on museum plaques and displays and within the 100 Highlights, with a discussion of how religion is presented at the NMK. In this paper I ask how regimes of value are created at the NMK.

This paper, based on three years (2005-2006, 2010-2011) of participant observation, examines the aspirations of students studying the Korean mask dance drama Bongsan Talchum in a twice-weekly evening class run by the Bongsan Talchum Preservation Association. I sought to understand the motivations and aspirations of the participants in the class. Unlike previous research on performing arts classes in Korea, the participants are not primarily housewives with hobbies nor are they college students establishing a connection with their roots. My research revealed two types of long-term participants: high school students preparing for arts university auditions and early-career performers of other arts adding to their skill set. I found that the students in the class were frequently engaged in three simultaneous pursuits through their study of what is arguably the best known mask dance drama in Korea: acquiring cultural capital, preparing to utilize the arts, and exhibiting "cosmopolitan strivings" – a desire to present Korean culture internationally. These participants almost always denied desire to become performers with the Bongsan Talchum Preservation Association, yet several regular class members in 2005-06 now occupy low-level positions in the group, proving the effectiveness of the class as an entry to professional performance of the mask dance drama.

Course Description: This is a class for those who want to use popular music as a tool to more deeply understand contemporary Korea. The class will address Korean popular music from the turn of the twentieth century to the latest K-pop hits, all while noting the ways that the changing musical tastes of Korean people are linked to historical, social, and cultural shifts on the Korean peninsula as well as music and performance related trends that influenced Korea from abroad. Students are not expected to be deeply familiar with Korean music, history, culture, or language, however, class lectures, activities, and discussions will presume that the average student has some knowledge through previous classes in Asian Studies, following Korean popular culture, or growing up in a Korean family. Class will use abundant music and video clips, incorporate discussions based on academic articles and chapters, and require student analysis that connects popular music to its context.

Theories of Traditional Performance II
Graduate Course, Dept. in Cultural Contents Department, Korea University

CedarBough T. Saeji (서이지)                                                                          c.saeji@gmail.com
Ph.D. Culture and Performance, UCLA

Course Overview:
This course will guide students, in detail, in the process of taking their own research on performance (which should be based in ethnography and experience, not historical studies) and preparing it for publication. Each reading will be examined for the ways that it demonstrates the process of preparing research for others' eyes, and each class session will be devoted to understanding how to translate ideas and experience into published academic work. In addition to learning more about performance and research methods on performance, each class will include a short lecture and exercises on specific topics of concern, from how to write an abstract that will get you into a conference, to what to expect when you submit an article for peer review.

Course Goals:
 Engage in in-depth discussion of articles and book chapters about traditional performance from around the world, including Korea.
 Learn how to incorporate your own fieldwork, experiences, and arguments into academic writing.
 Become familiar with the process of being published in academic journals.
 Prepare a well-edited, theoretically nuanced, original piece of writing for publication in an English-language journal.

한국문화유산
Korean Cultural Heritage

Location: 어문관305호
Time:  Wednesday 1:30-3:20

“There is no such thing as heritage. There is rather a hegemonic discourse about heritage, which acts to constitute the way we think, talk and write about heritage. This discourse validates a set of practices and performances, which populates both popular and expert constructions of ‘heritage’ and undermines alternative and subaltern ideas about ‘heritage’” (Smith 2006: 11).
"Music, dance, performances and rituals, culinary and occupational traditions, craftsmanship and a large a variety of knowledge systems have been lost or are in decline" (Kurin 2007: 11).
"We need to explore the issue of what memories are privileged and which are repressed through heritage politics" (Rowlands and de Jong 2007: 16).

Course Overview:
This course is designed to give students greater familiarity with Korean heritage preservation and debates about what is protected and how it is protected, as well as (crucially) how heritage is presented to the public. The course will include three general areas of learning. In the first we will study key readings to understand the theories and debates that form the basis for discussion of heritage: readings that address the meaning of heritage but also tradition, authenticity, memory, and framing. In the second and third part of the class we will examine the Korean case.
The second part of the class will focus on issues of how museums and sites display Korea's heritage—the objects of great historic and artistic value, but also how intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is shown within the museum-type setting. We will discuss what is said and not said in introducing objects and genres both in introductory labels for entire rooms, individuals labels, audio guide information and docent led tours. What themes and ideas are emphasized? We will examine framing techniques such as placement, lighting, space allotted to each display. We will examine subtle and explicit ways that the audience is guided to value certain objects.
In the third part of the class we will turn our attention to the issues surrounding Korea's intangible heritage—and the people who hold artistic skills and performances that represent Korean embodied traditional knowledge. Just as in the case of tangible artistic items we will examine how these items are framed for the audience. What sort of advertising exists for performances? What images and words are used in pamphlets, posters, or fliers for the performances? How do emcees introduce the arts? How are the traditional arts presented in comparison with other genres of performance?


Course Objectives:
1.) Students will learn the international and national frameworks for preservation/protection of heritage. 
2.) Students will become familiar with key theorists and key topics in heritage studies, and discuss Korean heritage with reference to these international voices.
3.) Students will gain a more complex understanding of debates and controversies in heritage preservation.
4.) Students will develop their own viewpoint on Korean heritage practices through two projects analyzing exhibition and performance, and one paper where they propose methods to interest young people in traditional culture.


Grading and Evaluation
10% Attendance
20% Participation
For the Curve:
10% Quizzes related to the readings, authors, and ideas
For the Ideas:
15% (Group) Project I: Museum Project
5% Summary Paper
10% Group Presentation
20% (Pair) Project II: Performance Project
10% Summary Paper
10%  Presentation
25% Essay on the Difficulties of Attracting Younger Koreans to Traditional Culture

Detailed Description of Assignments
Group Project: Museum Project
Students will form small groups (three people per group, depending on class enrollment) and compare a single topic in two museums, identifying how one type of object/subject/material/time period/etc. can be exhibited differently. Each group should find the topic that is interesting to them and focus as tightly as possible. Papers that try to introduce too general of a topic will probably be unsuccessful. The short summary paper should be 400-500 words (longer than 600 words and students will lose points)(word count does not include the bibliography, but does include footnotes). The presentation should be 10 minutes long (timed). This paper and presentation are meant to show your understanding of the concepts of curation and framing, it is not meant to be a completed piece of research but rather a preliminary examination and exercise in understanding of museological practices. Therefore it is expected that you will include sentences such as "to further prove this argument I would need to do XYZ/find ABC." (XYZ being the type of research you think would yield the data, ABC being the data you think already exists, but you need to locate). Think of this assignment as making a proposal not as making a finished piece of work.

Example Topic:
Shamanism as displayed at the National Folk Museum and at the Museum of Shamanism (near 국민대)

Pair Project: Performance Project
For this project students will form pairs. For the project each pair will be analyzing how performances are presented to the audience. You may both watch the same performance, or watch two different performances. You might want to seek out a performance that is trying to use a new presentation style. You may refer to previous performances you have watched (if they are traditional you may refer in more depth, if they were not traditional, refer briefly). You may utilize every aspect of the performance and its framing materials to prepare your project. This includes the venue, poster, pamphlet, brochure, program, emcee and other audience members. It is strongly encouraged that you ask several other audience members why they attended the show and what their traditional arts background is. If possible, try to test their knowledge. Try to ask people who are not near your age (as well as other young people). Write down what the emcee says, or record his/her introduction to the performance. Pairs need to think critically about each decision made by the venue and venue staff (such as the artistic director), as well as the performers (who have a varying degree of control over framing materials and may also speak during performance). This should be an exercise in
1) identifying things that were well done and why you think so
2) identifying things that are missing (this is hard, because they are not there!)
3) thinking about how we present culture and how those presentation materials change the audience experience.

The short summary paper should be 400-500 words (longer than 600 words and students will lose points)(word count does not include the bibliography, but does include footnotes). The presentation should be 10 minutes long (timed). This paper and presentation are meant to show your understanding of the concepts of curation and framing of performance (the 1, 2, 3 above). It is not meant to be a completed piece of research but rather a preliminary examination and exercise in understanding of performance presentation practices. Again, this means you may make statements about what sort of research would be needed to extend the paper to full length (if it were a full length research paper it would be at least 5,000 words—this is similar to a proposal).

Essay: How to Present Traditional Culture to Attract Younger Viewers:
In this assignment you will imagine a method for presenting Korean heritage that can somehow get younger people interested in tradition. Your approach can be as broad or as focused as you would like. For this essay you may examine traditional performance(s), or exhibition of material cultural heritage, however, changing tradition (ex. fusion music) will be considered cheating for the purposes of this assignment. You must develop a way to present traditional culture (one item? several similar items? all of it?) that you feel can attract younger people. Your method can be designed to convince a small group of people to become very passionate, or a larger group to become somewhat interested. It can be as creative as you would like to be, or it can highlight good approaches you have found that you believe should be further developed. For example, it could take the form of proposing a concert series or a special museum exhibition, prepared/packaged/framed in some way that you argue will attract younger people. 
This essay will be your own ideas, however, it will be academic and should include quotations from interviews (including group interviews or interviews you personally conduct) and academic articles/books (read for this class, another class, or found independently). It will have a bibliography, and a standard structure (introduction (with argument), background, evidence, conclusion). As usual you may want a background section that refers to a lot of secondary sources. The evidence section should include 3+ points that support your argument.

Feel free to include photographs that illustrate good or bad examples. There is no length requirement for this essay, but try to avoid superficiality by exploring in sufficient depth.

If you would like to complete this assignment as a video-lecture with your narration, it still needs quotations, a standard structure, and a bibliography. It is your choice if you want to do the assignment in this way, or as a conventional written essay.

For many people outside the South Korean popular music (K-pop) world, the December 2017 death of pop star Kim Jonghyun was a sad, but abstract event. Jonghyun, and dozens more like him, is a type of Korean celebrity known as an "idol." In addition to being popular within Korea, idols are the public face of K-pop, which has become a worldwide phenomenon. This has made idols into incarnations of Korea and Korean culture, and brought the public’s powerful disciplining gaze to bear on these young performers. In this paper, we explore how characteristics of life in contemporary Korea—including a high suicide rate, and intense pressures in educat ion and employment—compound with idols’ years of intense training in singing and dancing without adequate attention to physical, much less mental, health. Although this is the first incident of an A-list K-pop idol committing suicide, we propose that the nature of contemporary Korean celebrity, together with specific factors defining th...

Popular culture texts not only entertain us, they shape our understanding of the world and our place in it. This article explores the contradictions and effects of the use of imagined and real Korean settings and traditional iconography in recent videos from Korean hip hop artists with a particularly close reading of the rapper Beenzino’s mid-2016 offering ‘January’, additionally informed by Drunken Tiger’s ‘Mantra’, MC Mong’s ‘Fame’ and Agust D’s ‘Daechwita’. The videos each utilize settings that signify Koreanness and feature significant symbols of Korea. I investigate what symbols and icons are used to take a foreign genre and imbue it with Koreanness within the music video frame. I find that these videos circulate and re-circulate a limited number of icons of Korea, because the images are meant not to portray pre-modern Korea in its complexity, but traditional Korea both as a symbol of national pride and as a (domestic and international) tourist destination wherein the palace is...