Korean Studies Commons^™

Glokalisasi Konten Digital K-Pop Di Media Sosial Tiktok Smtown Indonesia, Alvaro Taura Qurniawan, Zaini Zaini

Multikultura

The expansion of K-pop into various countries has encouraged the use of social media as one of its primary promotional platforms. However, such promotional content cannot always be readily accepted by local audiences due to differences in cultural backgrounds. Therefore, this study aims to analyze how glocalization strategies are implemented by SM Entertainment in the TikTok content of @smtown_indonesia to reach the Indonesian market. Using content analysis and Roland Robertson’s concept of glocalization, this study examines the incorporation of local elements in K-pop promotional content uploaded by SMTOWN Indonesia. The data consist of 130 TikTok videos posted on the @smtown_indonesia …

Hubungan Dinamika Keluarga Dengan Gangguan Psikologis Tokoh Baek Ah-Jin Dalam Drama Dear X, Amanda Poetri Winachyu, Amelia Burhan

Multikultura

As the Korean drama industry continues to expand, K-dramas have evolved beyond mere entertainment to serve as a medium for representing and critically examining various social issues, including mental health. Dear X (2025) is a Korean thriller drama that explores the theme of Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD). Using a qualitative method and a literary psychology approach, this study aims to analyze the relationship between a dysfunctional family environment and the development of ASPD in the main character, Baek Ah-jin, based on John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory. The findings reveal that Baek Ah-jin exhibits characteristic traits of ASPD, such as manipulative behavior …

Transformasi Jeong Dalam Budaya Korea: Representasi Keluarga Pilihan Dalam Film Korea Love In The Big City, Widad Marshallova Nursandi, Fadhila Hasby

Multikultura

Jeong is an important cultural value in South Korean society that has traditionally been associated with family relationships, emotional closeness, and a sense of togetherness. Social changes in contemporary Korean society have created space for jeong to develop beyond biological family ties. This study aims to analyze the transformation of the meaning of jeong through the representation of chosen family in the film Love in the Big City (LitBC), which is represented as a form of negotiation with dominant family norms. This research employs a qualitative approach using cultural text analysis based on Stuart Hall's theory of representation. The data …

Tindakan Diskriminasi Terhadap Pekerja Wanita Dalam Film I Don't Fire Myself, Marsha Azzahra Putri, Euis Sulastri

Multikultura

This study examines the discrimination experienced by Park Jeong-eun in the film I Don't Fire Myself and analyzes it from the perspective of Mary Wollstonecraft's liberal feminist theory. This research employs a descriptive qualitative method, using scenes and dialogues from the film as the primary data source, while books, online sources, and previous studies serve as secondary data sources. Data were collected through repeated observation of the film and note-taking of scenes depicting discriminatory practices. The findings reveal that the discrimination experienced by Park Jeong-eun is reflected in unfair company policies, unequal job distribution, and workplace social relations characterized by …

Language Learner To Author: Ai-Assisted Children's Book And Theme Song Creation For Community Outreach, Hea Young Chun

Generative AI Teaching Activities

Students will use AI tools to create original children's storybooks, complete with accompanying theme songs, and subsequently present their finished works to students at local schools.

Asia Pacific Perspectives Vol. 19 No. 1, 2025, University Of San Francisco

Asia Pacific Perspectives

Articles

Think Pieces

Photo Essay

Book Reviews

Selective Remembrance: Constructing Nostalgia At The Park Chung Hee Presidential Museum, Abigail Shaw

Honors Theses

How and why does Park Chung Hee remain so potent in the minds of South Koreans, decades after his rule? Seungsook Moon (2009) describes the phenomenon as Park Chung Hee Syndrome: a cultural condition in which Park’s image circulates between glorification, demonization, and humanization, producing an unresolved and emotionally charged field of memory. Building on this, researchers have examined how a type of “Park Chung Hee nostalgia” operates through selective remembrance of developmental success, moral discipline, and national unity, ultimately creating a positive memory and longing for semblance of his long-ended rule (Park, 2011; Podoler, 2016; Lee, 2022).

Statues and …

"Obsessive Myth:" Disturbing The Grammar Of The Lyric And Epic In Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's "Dictee", Noelle (Nell) Kriegel

All Theses

The archival text Dictée by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha spans many genres, making it a highly hybrid text. Cha uses personal letters, official government documents, images, prose, dictation exercises, translations, and poetry to create a composite identity of women neglected through history. Dictée’s hybrid form allows it to experiment with the lyric and epic traditions, challenging their forms to adequately reflect the lived experience of oppressed women. Dictée’s hybridity is but one aspect of its interrogation of literary form and language; the text also plays with grammar, specifically pronouns, to depict a genealogy of female voices as they relate to …

Keibuan Pascamanusia (Posthuman) Dan Eksploitasi Afeksi Dalam Film Jung_E, Euis Sulastri

Multikultura

The film JUNG_E (2023), a South Korean film by Yeon Sang-ho, presents a distinctive representation of motherhood through the transformation of the maternal body into a posthuman entity. This study aims to analyze how maternal identity is constructed, weakened, and instrumentalized through technology within the context of future capitalism and militarism. Employing a qualitative-descriptive approach, the research examines the separation of the biological body, memory, and maternal affect as they are reconstituted in the form of artificial intelligence.

The theoretical framework integrates concepts of performativity and precarity/vulnerability proposed by Judith Butler, feminist posthumanism by Rosi Braidotti, affect theory by Silvan …

In Memoriam Gwangju: Transnational Memoryscapes Of Gwangju And Buenos Aires In The Works Of Han Kang And Im Heung-Soon, Heewon Chung

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Currently acclaimed as the first Asian female author who won the Nobel Prize in literature, Korean writer Han Kang has persistently struggled with memoryscapes and traumascapes. Han’s collection of poems Winter Beyond the Mirror delineates the poetic “I”’s experiences of visiting Argentina and describes how she senses the interconnectedness between Gwangju and Buenos Aires. Korean artist-filmmaker Im Heung-soon’s recent film Good Light, Good Air addresses the same issue, and actually Im and Han have shared a mutual concern about it since Han’s novel Human Acts. This essay defines Winter Beyond the Mirror and Good Light, Good Air, coupled …

Book Review: Macarthur As Spirit: A Review Of Spirit Power: Politics And Religion In Korea’S American Century, Jieon Yoo

Asia Pacific Perspectives

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Inside Chinese Theater: Community And Artistry In Nineteenth-Century California And Beyond By Nancy Yunwha Rao, Jiyoon Auo

Asia Pacific Perspectives

No abstract provided.

From South Korea To South Central: The 1992 Los Angeles Uprising And The "Rooftop Korean", Mina Althea Lamson Jung

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the historical formation of the "rooftop Korean," the racial figure of the armed Korean American shopkeeper that emerged during the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising and has since been mobilized repeatedly in service of anti-Black counterinsurgency. Drawing on the framework of racial capitalism, this thesis argues that the rooftop Korean was not a spontaneous product of the Korean-Black conflict in South Central Los Angeles but the culmination of decades of U.S.-Korea relations, South Korean militarization, and the racial geography of capitalist development on both sides of the Pacific.

Tracing a transnational arc from the Korean War through the …

Writing The Script: Shaping Korean National Identity, Media Imperialism And The Revolution Of K-Dramas, Isai J. Martinez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis explores the role of South Korean television dramas (K-dramas) as cultural artifacts that the Korean creators have created and become agents, which in turn has constructed and projected globally the modern South Korean national identity. Positioned at the crossroads of cultural imperialism, nationalism, resistance and appropriation, K-dramas have become extremely critical to reshaping South Korea’s place in the global media landscape. Through the lens of the Hallyu (The Korean Wave), this study analyzes how K-drama’s navigate an ambiguous cultural space which simultaneously resists Western media dominance while appropriating global forms including platform-based distribution, tailoring original content to …

Think Piece: New South Korean Framework For Conceptualizing Nonkoreans?: Taehanoegugin And The Politics Of National Boundary-Making, Min Joo Lee

Asia Pacific Perspectives

Taehanoegugin is a newly coined Korean term that gained popularity around 2018 when a television program of the same name began airing on one of the Korean cable networks. It is a mixture of two independent and preexisting terms: the first part of the word, Taehan (대한), refers to the Republic of Korea; the latter part of the term, Oegugin (외국인), means foreigner. Hence, translated, the term means the Republic of Korean-foreigners. The term gained popularity enough to be adopted by other television entertainment programs and a sector of the government. What can we make of the term’s popularity? Does …

Representasi Cancel Culture Di Korea Selatan Dalam Film Pilot (2024), Sharfina Rahmanita Adani, Amelia Burhan

Multikultura

Cancel culture is a social phenomenon that occurs when an individual receives public backlash due to actions or statements considered to violate social norms. This phenomenon has become increasingly prominent in South Korea, attracting attention in its highly collective and responsive digital society, which has led to its portrayal in various media works. One such work is the film Pilot (2024), which tells the story of a famous pilot's reputation falling after a gender-biased comment of his spread widely online and drew public scrutiny. This study aims to analyze the representation of cancel culture in the film Pilot (2024) using …

Everyday Life In The U.S.: An Intersectional Approach To A North Korean Refugee Woman’S Identities, And Experiences, Lyounghee Kim

Communication ETDs

This dissertation examines everyday experiences of a North Korean refugee woman in the U.S., centering her narratives as sites of critique, resistance, and meaning-making. Grounded in Critical Refugee Studies, Asian American Studies, and Critical Intercultural Communication and framed by intersectionality, it explores how interlocking structures of power shape and are shaped by her life. Rather than focusing solely on trauma or assimilation, this study highlights her digital storytelling, faith, and mutual aid practices as acts of survival, dignity, and moral agency. Using a qualitative, narrative inquiry approach grounded in critical reflexivity, it thematically analyzes her stories to reveal how she …

Untitled, Seung Ho Jeon

Masters Theses

We are, by our very own nature, confined within our own lived experiences. To transcend our inherent loneliness, we seek ways to fulfill a fundamental sense of belonging through symbolic interactions. The external world we navigate is a subjective framework constructed through repetitive, mundane interaction, and as actors, we participate in such monotonous performances as a means to create shared meaning.

Such performance manifests as a collective entity - an intangible force that is not bound by institutionalized systems, emerging organically from grassroots beliefs and practices. Throughout the performance, there are symbols - artifacts, space, and interactions. And these transformative …

Transplant Transplant(Ed) Transplant(Ing), So Jung Yoon

Masters Theses

Boundaries shape our lives and identities. The tangible presence of boundaries becomes a medium for engaging with the world—such as who occupies a space and how, or what tools are deemed valid in a design process. These boundaries aren’t always visible; they’re embedded in systems, habits, and assumptions that shape how we move, create, and are recognized. They extend far beyond fixed geographies and the specific positions we occupy within them.

Transplanting is the process by which things are moved or move across boundaries in hopes of being planted, finding a place to stay. Though it can be a search …

For The Time Beings, Tori Hong

Masters Theses

For the Time Beings is a socially engaged installation and artist book exploring the material consequences and future possibilities of sociocultural time theories. Time, in the West, is typically associated with Newtonian linearity, while in the East, time theory relies on Buddhist principles. These epistemologies reinforce hierarchical and patriarchal structures. Centered on Indigenous Asian and Asian American perspectives, For the Time Beings challenges dominant ideologies of existing in time and space.

For nearly a year, I’ve burned handwritten prayers on new and full moons. The ashes of these prayers are incorporated into reverential drawings of chosen ancestors, made with charcoal …

Citrus Farming, Tourism, And Globalization: Jeju Island’S Transformation Under South Korea’S State-Led Development, Caitlin Hong

Student Work

The Williams Prize in East Asian Studies is awarded to Caitlin Hong for her outstanding senior thesis, “Citrus, Capital, and Control: Jeju Island’s Transformation under State-Led Development.”

Hong’s work exemplifies intellectual ambition, methodological rigor, and original insight. Through an interdisciplinary blend of historical analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, she offers the first comprehensive English-language account of Jeju Island’s citrus farming industry, tracing its development from the postwar period to the present day.

Demonstrating extraordinary initiative, Hong designed and executed an independent research trip to Jeju Island, conducting interviews with citrus farmers, laborers, and experts, while also consulting numerous primary sources in …

Breaking News And Broken Hopes: Inter-Korean Engagement And The Emotional Consequences Of Media Framing, Sophia Lizanne Trombley

Honors Theses

This thesis analyzes two periods of pro-North Korean engagement regimes in South Korea during the presidencies of Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003), Roh Moo-hyun (2003-2008), and Moon Jae-in (2017-2023). Through analysis of the three aforementioned presidents’ initiatives for engagement with the North, categorization of news headlines from two major South Korean sources, and public opinion polls, I argue that especially high and low emotional reactions among the South Korean public during these periods were exacerbated by news media’s overly dramatized portrayal of inter-Korean interactions, both big and small. This has led to desensitization and emotional exhaustion among the South Korean public, causing …

Fan Art, Jacob Lay

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the work of artists like Vincent van Gogh, Donald Baechelor, and Cezanne in their relationship to my work and contemporary painting. Drawing from personal letters, interviews, and essays on these artists, the paper places painting and drawing from the thesis exhibition in a history as well as relates them to current pop culture relics. The paper also includes a process-based analyses of how each painting is made and with what materials.

Pottery As A Socio-Economic Marker In Prehistoric Burials Along The Southern Coast Of South Korea, P. Codi Shoemaker

Theses

This thesis investigates the role of pottery as a socio-economic marker in prehistoric burials along the southern coast of South Korea, with a focus on the Late Jeulmun to Early/Mid-Mumun Pottery Periods. Through an interdisciplinary analysis of burial sites at Janghang (Gadeok-do), Sangchonri, and Yulha-ri, the study examines how ceramic design, placement, and associated grave goods reflect evolving social structures within early Korean communities. While pottery has long been examined through functional and chronological lenses, this research considers its symbolic and cultural value in funerary contexts. Findings suggest that pottery served not only utilitarian or ritual purposes, but increasingly signaled …

Impacts On College-Aged Asian American Mental Health, Zahra Soherwardy

Senior Theses

This study explores the relationship between different forms of racial harassment and mental health issues in Asian American college students. Asian American mental health is a growing concern in the field of public health. Asian Americans have the lowest treatment rates and some of the highest stigma levels of any demographic. They are also impacted by the model minority myth and discrimination, further alienating them from getting help. The topics of subtle racism, blatant racism, and current racial discrimination were compared to depressive symptoms, anxiety, self-esteem, and four domains of aggression using survey data. Subtle racism was found to be …

Making Waves: Comfort Women Justice Movements Across Generations, Julia A. Jacobellis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Between 1932 and 1945 an estimated 200,000 women across the globe were coerced into becoming comfort women for the Japanese military. As comfort women they were forced to prostitute themselves to soldiers, and endured physical, psychological and emotional torture. While comfort stations were liberated in 1945 with the end of World War II, the Japanese government has yet to formally apologize for their treatment of comfort women, and has failed to meet the demands of survivors and their families who seek reconciliation and justice. The global leaders of these movements for reconciliation are institutions and organizations in South Korea, China, …

Representasi Alienasi Coda Pada Tokoh Bori Dalam Film Korea Bori, Dea Monica Ulandari, Amelia Burhan, Ph.D

Multikultura

CODA or Children of Deaf Adults are the descendants of deaf parents who have the ability to hear and speak. They also have their own emotional stress because they have to adapt to two worlds, the hearing and deaf worlds. This leads to feelings of alienation which are also reinforced by external and internal factors. This research aims to find out how influential the feeling of alienation is on Bori's identity as a CODA in the Korean movie Bori. The character Bori is a CODA and the only person with hearing ability in her deaf family. The method used …

Rubie K. Lee Photograph Albums, Zach S. Henderson Library Special Collections

Finding Aids

This collection consists of three photograph albums documenting Rubie K. Lee's work with the Methodist Church’s Women's Missionary Council (WMC) in Korea from the 1920s through the early 1930s. The photographs depict Korea under Japanese rule, showcasing its people and landscapes. Albums also contains photographs of the Ogeechee River flood of 1929, as well as an extensive collection of color postcards from Lee’s travels to Korea, Japan and China.

Fermented Resistance: The Role Of Kimchi In Preserving Korean Identity Through Colonialism And Modernization, Francis M. Ferreira

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis began with a simple observation during my year abroad in Seoul: kimchi was everywhere. It appeared at every table, in every household, and soon, in every question I had about Korean identity. What started as a personal curiosity evolved into a deep historical inquiry into how this single dish — made of fermented cabbage, radish, and spices — came to represent the soul of a nation. This thesis traces kimchi’s journey from a humble survival food in agrarian Korea to a symbol of resistance during Japanese colonization, a tool for reclaiming identity after liberation, and ultimately, a globally …

Glossed Over, Rebecca Oh

Theses and Dissertations

Glossed Over is a collection of interdisciplinary artworks exploring my Korean-American diasporic identity and how gender, queerness, religion, neurodivergence, and internet culture intersect within that experience. Through a blend of painting, woodworking, and sculpture, this installation carries the various elements of undefinable 한 (pronounced: han), a concept I attempt to define and contextualize in the Introduction and throughout this thesis. Each artwork operates through coded language, metaphor, and partial disclosure, offering space for the othered to find recognition through subtle cues and signifiers. Through Glossed Over and this thesis, I scratch the surface of my journey in reconciling generational trauma …