Synopses & Reviews
Over the past decade, Korean popular culture has become a global phenomenon. The "Korean Wave" of music, film, television, sports, and cuisine generates significant revenues and cultural pride in South Korea.
The Korean Popular Culture Reader provides a timely and essential foundation for the study of "K-pop," relating the contemporary cultural landscape to its historical roots. The eighteen essays in this collection reveal the intimate connections of Korean popular culture, or
hallyu, to the peninsula's colonial and postcolonial histories, to the nationalist projects of the military dictatorship and the neoliberalism of twenty-first-century South Korea. Combining translations of seminal essays by Korean scholars on topics ranging from sports to colonial-era serial fiction with new work by scholars based in fields including literary studies, film and media studies, ethnomusicology, and art history, this collection expertly navigates the social and political dynamics that have shaped Korean cultural production over the past century.
Contributors. Jung-hwan Cheon, Michelle Cho, Youngmin Choe, Steven Chung, Katarzyna J. Cwiertka, Stephen Epstein, Olga Fedorenko, Kelly Y. Jeong, Rachael Miyung Joo, Inkyu Kang, Kyu Hyun Kim, Kyung Hyun Kim, Pil Ho Kim, Boduerae Kwon, Regina Yung Lee, Sohl Lee, Jessica Likens, Roald Maliangkay, Youngju Ryu, Hyunjoon Shin, Min-Jung Son, James Turnbull, Travis Workman
Review
"A must-read for scholars, students, and fans alike, this path-breaking volume explores vitality and diversity of Korean popular culture. Through an international collection of experts, we discover the both the importance of local contexts of production and of the global reach of Korean film, TV, dance, music, and more. It’s a stunning work that will stand as the cornerstone of an emerging field."—Ian Condry, author of The Soul of Anime: Collaborative Creativity and Japan's Media Success Story
Review
"This volume is a pleasurable and intellectually stimulating excursion across the many genres of Korean popular culture. Bringing essays originally written in English together with well-chosen and beautifully translated Korean-language essays, The Korean Popular Culture Reader is a vibrant contribution to the field. This who's who of Korean cultural studies will certainly enjoy a wide readership."—Nancy Abelmann, author of The Intimate University: Korean American Students and the Problems of Segregation
Review
andquot;Safe Space is a pathbreaking book for the interdisciplinary fields of queer studies and American studies. Offering a trenchant account of the stakes of gay (and sometimes lesbian) claims to urban geographies, this carefully researched history unsettles many of the heroic assumptions driving the current politics of sexual identity in the United States. It will make a crucial intervention in a number of scholarly and activist debates.andquot;andmdash;Siobhan B. Somerville, author of Queering the Color Line: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture
Review
andquot;A wonderful book that bursts through the usual boundaries of gay history. Christina B. Hanhardt weaves class, race, and sexuality tightly together in her urban history of the past fifty years and, in doing so, succeeds in upsetting much of the conventional wisdom about the gay movement and gay politics. Her analysis implicitly calls for the revival of a multi-issue, intersectional queer politics that challenges injustices of every sort and sees them all as linked.andquot;andmdash;John D'Emilio, author of The World Turned: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and Culture
Review
andquot;Christina B. Hanhardt's brilliant book should be required reading for all those interested in how the LGBT movement's politics have come to reinforce racialized governance logics and control of economically and socially marginal populations.andquot;andmdash;Urvashi Vaid, author of Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics
Review
andldquo;A commendable revision of the LGBT story in America. . . . A dramatic picture of a febrile movement that had a difficult relationship with its competitors. The book further excels by demonstrating this history through the experiences of LGBT people of color, transgender individuals, and immigrants. This rich analysis serves as a useful primer on why gay neighborhoods are at the epicenter of discussions about gentrification.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;The bookandrsquo;s extensive coverage of LGBT activism in the latter half of the 20th century illustrates how contemporary socio-legal gains were made possible by resistance-fuelled, political organising. What began as a gay backlash to victimisation soon became a platform for resistance to state violence. . . . Overall, this is a fascinating insight into lesser-known aspects of Americaandrsquo;s gay liberation movement.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;This is a deep and intriguing study of what neighborhood and safety have meantandmdash;and seemed to meanandmdash;to different facets of the gay community at different times in its development in the period following WWII. . . . While obviously written for an academic audience,
Safe Space will be accessible to most readers, and offers some insights into ways that gay spaces may not have been quite what we thought they were.andrdquo;
Review
andquot;Hanhardt challenges commonly accepted narratives about safe streets, LGBT identity, and intersections of visibility and vulnerability. . . . Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.andquot;
Review
andquot;Recommended both for its astute and never simplified analyses of social movements as well as its cautionarily optimistic political vision, Christina B. Hanhardtandrsquo;sand#160;Safe Spaceand#160;is a necessary and welcome contribution to the field of LGBT and Queer Studies.andquot;
Review
andldquo;Scholars and academics studying urban spaces, as well as grassroots activists within and outside the LGBT community, should take note of Hanhardtandrsquo;s work. Her discussion of the emergence of LGBT activist claims to the protection of property and of self and the ways these protections became viewed as natural rights expected in American urban spaces helps illuminate not only specific transformations within urbanized LGBT populations in New York and San Francisco, but broader divisions which formed in liberal activist groups after the 1960s.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Against the fractured landscape of cities characterized by uneven development, Safe Space is a clarion call for radicals to recognize the common deterrents facing all those working for more just cities. . . . Safe Space recognizes that claiming the city as an equitable space for all will require a broader understanding of identity, its use as a tool for development, and its latent potential as a site of resistance.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Hanhardtandrsquo;s voice is that of an activist saddened, sometimes enraged, by how the potential for both equality and diversity was squandered by a middle-class white gay movement. Her book, then, is itself a moral intervention, one that combines social research and utopian politics.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Winner, 2014 Lambda Literary Award in LGBT Studies
Since the 1970s, a key goal of lesbian and gay activists has been protection against street violence, especially in gay neighborhoods. During the same time, policymakers and private developers declared the containment of urban violence to be a top priority. In this important book, Christina B. Hanhardt examines how LGBT calls for andquot;safe spaceandquot; have been shaped by broader public safety initiatives that have sought solutions in policing and privatization and have had devastating effects along race and class lines.
Drawing on extensive archival and ethnographic research in New York City and San Francisco, Hanhardt traces the entwined histories of LGBT activism, urban development, and U.S. policy in relation to poverty and crime over the past fifty years. She highlights the formation of a mainstream LGBT movement, as well as the very different trajectories followed by radical LGBT and queer grassroots organizations. Placing LGBT activism in the context of shifting liberal and neoliberal policies, Safe Space is a groundbreaking exploration of the contradictory legacies of the LGBT struggle for safety in the city.
Synopsis
A historical and ethnographic account of how LGBT activism for safe neighborhoods inadvertently dovetailed with and reinforced anticrime measures harmful to the poor and people of color.
About the Author
Kyung Hyun Kim is Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures and Director of the Critical Theory Emphasis at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Virtual Hallyu: Korean Cinema of the Global Era and The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema, both also published by Duke University Press.
Youngmin Choe is Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. andquot;The White Ghettoandquot;: Sexual Deviancy, Police Accountability, and the 1960s War on Poverty 35
2. Butterflies, Whistles, and Fists: Safe Streets Patrols and Militant Gay Liberalism in the 1970s 81
3. andquot;Count the Contradictionsandquot;: Challenges to Gay Gentrification at the Start of the Reagan Era 117
4. Visibility and Victimization: Hate Crime Laws and the Geography of Punishment, 1980s and 1990s 155
5. andquot;Canaries of the Creative Ageandquot;: Queer Critiques of Risk and Real Estate in the Twenty-First Century 185
Conclusion 221
Epilogue 227
Appendix: Neighborhood Maps of New York and San Francisco 231
Notes 233
Bibliography 315
Index 335