This event will comprise two short presentations and a panel discussion. In Part One, Dr. Pil Ho Kim (assistant professor, DEALL) will offer a historical overview of the relationship between Korean popular music and the United States, focusing in particular on the role that American civil rights anthems and modern folk songs played in the development of the protest song movement against the military dictatorship in South Korea. Then Wonseok Lee (Ph.D. student, School of Music) will bring the story to the present by discussing how K-Pop’s explosive global fandom has allowed its leaders to champion various social causes, including recent anti-racist activism in the U.S. Finally in Part Three, a group of undergraduate and graduate students at Ohio State join the conversation to share their first-hand experiences with respect to K-Pop and social activism in the contemporary moment.
