• Date: December 18th, Monday, 2023, 12:00 – 13:40
• Online via Zoom

Presenter: Hojai Jung (SNUAC)
Discussants:  Gi Yeon Koo (SNUAC) / Seongbin Hwang (Rikkyo University)
Moderator: Sojeong Park (The Center for Hallyu Studies)

This book is based on the news collection experience of the author in Korea, the methodology of comparative Asian studies, and several years of insight from living in Southeast Asia, and written on not only the K-pop syndrome in Asia but also the present of East Asia through the important social and cultural phenomena such as real estate, barter transaction, migrant labor, IT industry, entertainment, etc., and the accomplishments and errors of Southeast Asian politicians such as Aung San Suu Kyi, Thaksin, Sam Rainsy, Nicole Seah, Mahathir bin Mohamad, etc. This book especially focuses on the cultural diversity, political openness, autonomy of civil society, and anti-corruption movement that has formed a flow through Asia’s modern and contemporary history, and talks about Asian universality and specificity. The author emphasizes that the success of K-pop and K-drama is not a simple result of Korea’s economic success, but a combined result of the global cultural exchanges and formation of networks, development of a rational system, innovation of slave-like contracts, openness and freedom of media, fair competition, and moral sensibility. At the same time, the author suggests that there is the ‘power of civilization’ innate in traditions and history at the roots of recent developments in East Asia, further focuses on K-culture as an early symptom of a civilizational phenomenon that creates the common experience and memory of a ‘region’ that is East Asia, and finally derives the necessity of an “Asian perspective”.