K-Pop: A Century in the Making, with Pil Ho Kim (Ohio State Univ) (Oct. 25, 2023)

K-pop’s sustained global popularity from Psy’s “Gangnam Style” to BTS has piqued curiosity of many about its origins and transformations. This talk takes an expansive view of K-pop as an abbreviation of Korea’s century-long musical tradition – from early twentieth-century folk songs, Japanese colonial-era jazz, 1960s’ rock and soul from the U.S. military bases in South Korea, to the emergence of home-grown musicians who would become the masterminds of K-pop entertainment company juggernauts. It is a tradition full of shapeshifting crossovers, ingenious hybridities, and intercultural collaborations, all of which have served as key ingredients to K-pop’s meteoric rise.

K-Pop: A Century in the Making

Pil Ho Kim

(Associate Professor in Korean, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University)

Wednesday, October 25, from 5-6:30 pm
121 Bay State Road, Riverside Room

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