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Rethinking the Comparative Studies on Asia-Latin America through Korea-Latin America

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Organizer: JinAeng Choi

Co-Organizer: Moisés Park

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In recent years, there has been increased publications exploring transcultural movements and relations between Asia and Latin America. At the same time, the study of Korean popular culture, literature, and language has rapidly expanded, largely driven by the widespread popularity of “K-culture” or South Korean popular culture—in which Latin American audiences have played a significant role in promoting K-pop and Korean media products. While the level of fervor directed at Korean media products has not extended to the comparative perspectives on Korea-Latin America or Asia-Latin America, attention to such connections has expanded as scholars from various fields have developed comparative projects that examine intercultural exchanges and connections between the two areas. Such development is contributing to the continuing growth and emergence of “Asian-Latin American Studies” or “Transpacific Studies” emphasizing the Americas rather than merely the US-Asia exchanges.

This seminar invites researchers working on the transcultural interactions of Korea and Latin America to discuss the challenges and possibilities of comparative approaches of Asia-Latin America as they emerge in our own work. This seminar aims to facilitate in-depth discussions on the dynamic history of literary and cultural production and circulation of Korea-Latin America, laying the groundwork for advancing theoretical insights into lesser-known cultural production.The objective of this seminar is to examine how the comparative introduction of Korea into the growing field of Asian-Latin American Studies can bring new insight to historical, theoretical, and methodological considerations that arise when less-commonly explored conditions or perspectives are introduced.  How might comparative research on Korea-Latin America engage with different forms of interactions and negotiation—approaches, topics, and ways of thinking—that have remained largely unarticulated within Area Studies and/or comparative literary and cultural studies?  How has Korean-Latin American Studies defied the binaries and pan-ethnic reductionisms that dominate in Area Studies?

We hope to bring together a diverse range of projects to explore specific methodological concerns in the study of Korea-Latin America and Asia-Latin America across various temporal and spatial dimensions, including but not limited to notions of displacement, otherness, translation, and intersubjectivity. We welcome paper abstracts on premodern, modern, or contemporary culture, as well as on various media such as fiction, poetry, film, television, music, visual art, and other forms.

 

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