Association for Asian Studies 2026 Committee of Korean Studies Pre-Conference

Nostalgia or Renaissance of Popular Culture in the 1990s

Date: Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Venue: SFU Harbour Centre 2270

• 9:30 Welcome Reception

• 9:50 Opening Remarks
  
  
• 10:00-11:40 Nostalgia, Fashion, and PC communication of the 1990s
  • Chair: Dal Yong Jin (Simon Fraser U.)
  • Chung Kang Kim (Hanyang U.) “Chatting about Movies: PC communication, Movie Quiz, and the Formation of ‘Taste.”
  • Ju Oak Kim (Texas A&M International U.) “Baekdu Daegan: Art Film Movements in Korea.” 
  • So-Rim Lee (U Penn) “Nan Naya: Girl Power and the Aesthetics of Gen-X Self-Fashioning in the 1990s.”
  • Jahyon Park (Wesleyan U.) “Animating Nostalgia, Animating Failure: Revisiting Exorcism Chronicles in the Era of the Korean Wave.”

• 11:40-12:50 Lunch

• 12:50-14:15 K-pop’s Roots in the 1990s
  • Chair: CedarBough Saeji (Busan U.)
  • Pil Ho Kim, (Ohio State U.) “Revolutionary Songs Will Be Televised: Nochatsa, Kim Kwangsŏk, Chong T’aech’un, and the Rise of Protest Folk in 1990s’ Mainstream Korean Pop.”
  • Areum Jeong (Arizona State U.) “K-pop Fan Fiction: The Deokhu Archive, Gendered Narratives, and Transmedia Platforms.”
  • Donna Kwon (U of Kentucky) “Analyzing the Implications of K-pop’s Multivocal Roots in the 1990s.”

• 14:15-14:30 Break
  
  
• 14:30-16:10 Reflection of the 1990s - Screen Media towards Global
  • Chair: Pil Ho Kim (Ohio State U.)
  • Young A Jung (George Mason U.) “The Transformation of Mobile Communications and Dating Customs in the 1990s: Ppippi and Yeonae in the Reply Series.”
  • Seongbin Hwang (Rikkyo U.) “Nostalgia and the Digital Shift: The Selective Memory of Narrative and Music in 1990s-set "Newtro" Dramas.”
  • Taeyoung Kim (Loughborough U.) “Streaming Media’s Commodification of the Korean Past: A Case Study of When Life Gives Tangerine.”
  • Dahye Kim (Northwestern U.) “Non-Western Media Theory amid the Global–Local Dialectic: The South Korean 1990s.”

• 16:10-17:45 Roundtable: Korean Cinema in Transition
  • “What comes after New Korean Cinema? A Conversation on Periodization”
    • Chair: Chung Kang Kim (Hanyang U.)
    • Participants:
      Ji-yoon An (UBC)
      Joseph Jeon (UC Irvine)
      Hee Seung Irene Lee (U of Auckland)
      Nam Lee (Chapman U.)