The following literature does not necessarily discuss K-pop, although it helps us to develop critical thinking. All three books point out how socially constructed concepts dominate our discursive framework:  Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. Routledge and Kegan Paul. Roh, D. S., Huang, B., & Niu, G. (2015). Techno-orientalism: imagining Asia in speculative fiction, history, and […]

The book I mentioned in Round 3: K-POP SHINKANKAKU NO MEDIA (K-pop, the Media of New Sense, Iwanami Shoten, 2018) by Dr. Seong-Min Kim. I read it in the Korean-translated version “케이팝의 작은 역사”(글항아리, 2018). He is a Korean scholar residing in Japan, and the majority of his work is to find a relation between […]

All the articles listed below are in Korean.  1)이수완, “대중문화와미학: 케이팝(K-Pop), Korean과Pop Music의기묘한만남- K-Pop의한국대중음악적진정성에대한탐구”, 인문논총, 서울대학교인문학연구원, vol.73, no.1,  pp.77-103, 2016.  Lee, S.-W. (2016). K-Pop: a Peculiar Encounter of Korean and Pop Music – Inquiry into K-Pop’s Korean Authenticity. Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University, 73(1), 77–103. https://doi.org/10.17326/jhsnu.73.1.201602.77 2)김윤하, “두유노케이팝? 댄스음악과아이돌을중심으로본케이팝의태동과발전”  문학동네제24권제4호(통권93호) , 1~24쪽, 2017.12.27  (Kim, Yoon-ha. […]

I always recommend T.K. Park’s “K-pop is Not a Genre” and the rebuttal “Is K-pop a genre? Yes. Yes it is.” by Lizzle from Beyond Hallyu to demonstrate the strangely difficult and elusive parameters with which we must define K-pop. Not to toot my own horn, but I’d recommend my video as well. I don’t […]

To learn more about Korean hip-hop in English, Song Myoungsun’s Han-guk Hip-hop is good. I usually recommend people read journal articles on K-pop instead of books because of the lag time to publication, since books get out of date pretty quickly. But there are so many excellent books that are on topics other than K-pop […]

Born, G., & Hesmondhalgh, D. (2000). Western music and its others difference, representation, and appropriation in music. Univ. of California Press.  (Not directly about K-pop or Korean music but about how the West sees music outside of its own culture). Howard, K. (2016). Michael Fuhr : Globalization and popular music in South Korea: Sounding out […]