Hegemonic Mimicry: Korean Popular Culture of the Twenty-First Century (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781478014492)

In Hegemonic Mimicry, Kyung Hyun Kim considers the recent global success of Korean popular culture--the Korean wave of pop music, cinema, and television, which is also known as hallyu--from a transnational and transcultural perspective. Using the concept of mimicry to think through hallyu's adaptation of American sensibilities and genres, he shows how the commercialization of Korean popular culture has upended the familiar dynamic of major-to-minor cultural influence, enabling hallyu to become a dominant global cultural phenomenon. At the same time, its worldwide popularity has rendered its Koreanness opaque. Kim argues that Korean cultural subjectivity over the past two decades is one steeped in ethnic rather than national identity. Explaining how South Korea leaped over the linguistic and cultural walls surrounding a supposedly "minor" culture to achieve global ascendance, Kim positions K-pop, Korean cinema and television serials, and even electronics as transformative acts of reappropriation that have created a hegemonic global ethnic identity.

Author: Kyung Hyun Kim
ISBN-10: 1478014490
ISBN-13: 9781478014492
Publisher: Duke University Press
Language: English
Published: 11/19/2021
Pages: 328
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.67d