ASIA 381 - Transnational Korea

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

From “Azaleas” to jombi (zombies): we will cover a wide spectrum of Korean and Korean American texts beginning with folktales, legends, and origin myths and ending with the fiction and films of post-“Korean Wave” international auteurs like the writer/director Lee Chang-dong. We will examine religious syncretism, fantasy, and depictions of gender in “classical” narratives like The Nine Cloud Dream (from the 17^th-century) as well as the effects of colonialism, war, and frenetic economic development in the “post-wired” culture of contemporary Korean diaspora (with some attention to pop-culture phenomena like commercial music and genre films). We will be reading and watching the works of Korean Americans, dystopian South Koreans, and North Korean dissidents, paying special attention to works by women. The Department.

One 2-hour period.