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By Kwon Mee-yoo
Global superstar boy band BTS not only captivated fans in Korea and abroad, but also brought about fresh attention to Korean studies around the world. It is not difficult to find academic papers on the boy band as seen in papers like "'You Can't Help But Love Them': BTS, Transcultural Fandom, and Affective Identities" by Courtney McLaren and Jin Dal-yong and "Performed intermediality and beyond in the BTS music video 'Idol': K-Pop idol identities in contemporary Hallyu" by Yeogeun Yonsue Kim.
As hallyu or the Korean wave breaks through more than ever before with the dual success of K-pop and Korean cinema abroad, the number of schools offering courses on Korea is on the rise. Scholars' research fields have expanded and diversified into various other aspects of the country.
The Korea Foundation provides financial support for Korean studies scholars and departments around the world. As of December 2020, 1,411 universities in 107 countries offer Korean studies courses. The number has grown substantially from 151 universities in 32 countries in 1991.
"Previously, hallyu was limited to popular culture, but it was extended to various related fields such as beauty, tourism, food and gaming. More recently, Korea's measures against COVID-19 also received international attention. With the growth of Korea's presence in the international scene, Korean studies are also advancing in both quantity and quality," an official of the KF said.
Korean studies was mostly researched by institutions in North America and Western Europe, but South Asian and Pacific countries have shown noticeable progress in Korean studies in the past decade.
"Since 2010, the Korea Foundation provides customized support depending on regional characteristics and development stage of Korean studies there. Recently, Korean studies degree courses were launched in India, Indonesia, Thailand and Russia," the official said.
In 2010, about 50 percent of the institutions that received funding from the KF to offer courses on Korea were concentrated in North America and Europe. However, the distribution became more equal after the KF began to support Korean studies programs at universities in South Asia, the Pacific, Central and South America, Russia and Central Asia.
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| Clark Sorensen, director of the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Washington / Courtesy of Clark Sorensen |
"Korea on the internet seems about as important as, say, Italy ― a country larger in population and just slightly richer, but not by much. What has done it? K-pop is important. Also film. Parasite won the Oscar and got a theatrical release ― incredible for a foreign language film. There is broad interest in Korean cinema. South Korea's handling of the COVID pandemic has been noticed. So I wouldn't name any single thing but to do what South Korea is doing ― take its place in the global system economically and culturally ― and people will notice," he said.
Sorensen got interested in Korean folk religion and earned his master's degree in Korean regional studies from Washington in 1974, after graduating with a geography major at the University of California at Berkeley. For his doctoral thesis, he visited Korea in 1976 and did a village study on family, farm labor and ecological adaptation.
However, Korean studies students these days have been taking an interest in the country for different reasons.
"Students today have much more frequent and closer contact with Korea than they used to since flights across the Pacific are much cheaper than they used to be. Many students get interested in Korea because of K-pop or other hallyu influences," he said.
"The students interested in Korea are also much more ethnically diverse than they used to be. Twenty years ago my students were either white or Korean American. Now I still have white and Korean American students, but the majority of my students are more diverse ― I get Hispanic students, Somali students, Vietnamese students, students from the PRC or Taiwan, and so forth."
At the graduate level, students often used to be interested in intelligence or diplomatic work, but this is less common now.
"Young scholars coming out of Korea Ph.D. programs have varied interests. About half seem to be Korean or Korean American. It used to be that history, literature and perhaps anthropology and political science were the only fields with Korea scholars, but now all fields have them from sociology to information science to communications. There is more interest in literature and translation than in the past," the professor said.
Publications on Korea have diversified in recent years as well.
"It used to be impossible, almost, to find writing on Korean art, literature and culture, but now there are books and articles on these subjects coming out all the time. In the past it was all politics and foreign relations, with a little bit of history," Sorensen said.
"Politics and foreign relations are still important. There is a lot of interest in North Korea these days, and books coming out each year on North Korea. As South Korean society has changed, subjects of interest have changed. There is writing on women and gender, real estate speculation, human rights, music, K-pop, Korean movies ― you name it," Sorensen said.
According to a report by the Academy of Korean Studies, in the 1950s, popular themes of Korean studies were politics and history due to the 1950-53 Korean War. As Korea began to industrialize, fields of interest extended to sociology and economics in the 1960s.
The number of papers on Korean studies increased sharply from the 1970s as the country's rapid economic growth grabbed international attention. The number of English-language papers on Korea jumped from 3,974 in the 1970s to 8,120 in the 1980s.
From the 1980s, basic linguistic studies on Korean language started to appear, but fundamental research on other fields such as anthropology, geography, law and pedagogy were still lacking.
Papers on art and culture emerged in the early 1970s, focusing on the consequences of Japanese colonization and modernity. Foreign researchers took interest in Korea's culture and heritage.
In the 2000s, research themes on Korea diversified greatly along with the increase in Korea's national prestige.
Out of 95 Korean studies papers published in four major journals ― Korean Studies, Journal of Korean Studies, Journal of Asian Studies, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies ― from 2007 to 2012, history was the most popular topic with 29 papers, followed by social science (13 papers), cultural studies (12), literature (10) and film (10).
The number has even increased in recent years. The academy held a complete enumeration survey on six scholarly journals on Korean and Asian studies from 2015 to 2019 and the total number of pieces on Korea ― including research papers, reviews and book reviews ― was 451, a significant jump.
Among 198 papers, research on Korean history still make up the largest number with 59 papers, closely followed by 57 social science papers. There were 34 papers on Korean literature, 21 on culture, 13 on film with minor entries in anthropology (6), religion (4), linguistics (2), music (1) and art history (1).
"Despite the quantitative growth, the theme of Korean studies leans to history and social science, leaving more potential in less-studied fields such as music and art," the report wrote.
Hallyu fueled diversity into cultural research, studying the culture of Seoul in relation to hallyu or K-dramas.
Though few in numbers, research in music and art looked into contemporary issues such as the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster from the perspective of art history and the meaning of a North Korean troupe performing in South Korea.
"Interest in Korea sparked by hallyu continues to expand and with knowledge and understanding on Korea, Korean studies scholars can be a strong support for Korea in the international society. We are in the early stages of a virtuous circle of establishing Korean studies degree programs, training Korean studies researchers and supporting them to become experts on Korea. We will continue to put efforts in promoting Korean studies on the international stage," the Korea Foundation official said.
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