Table of Contents

Preface: Writing Pop Culture in the Time of Pandemic  ix
Introduction: Of Mimicry and Miguk  1
1. Short History of K-Pop, K-Cinema, and K-Television  35
2. The Souls of Korean Folk in the Era of Hip-Hop  85
3. Dividuated Cinema: Temporality and Body in the Overwired Age  118
4. Running Man: The Korean Television Variety Program and Affect Confucianism  140
5. The Virtual Feast: Mukbang, Con-Man Comedy, and the Post-Traumatic Family in Extreme Job (2019) and Parasite (2019)  164
6. Korean Meme-icry: Samsung and K-Pop 195
7. Reading Muhan Dojon through the Madanggǔk  220
Notes  237
Bibliography  273
Index  289

About the Author

Kyung Hyun Kim is Professor in East Asian Studies at the University of California, Irvine, author of Virtual Hallyu: Korean Cinema of the Global Era and The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema, and coeditor of The Korean Popular Culture Reader, all also published by Duke University Press.

Reviews

“Hegemonic Mimicry presents a much-needed update on today's South Korean pop culture—one of the most fascinating epicenters of global cultural flows. Offering a probing insight into a wide spectrum of media productions, it is bound to be a must-read for those hoping to capture the symptomatic signs of the new millennium.”
*K-Pop Live: Fans, Idols, and Multimedia Performance*

“Hegemonic Mimicry provides insightful, critical analyses of Korean cultural products explored through a variety of lenses: national identity, transnationalism, convergence, social class, Confucianism, simulacra, and cynicism. Unlike many previous studies, Kyung Hyun Kim's book is very effective in theorizing developments in hallyu and its global proliferation. Anyone interested in contemporary Korean culture will learn a lot from this book and enjoy Kim's ability to connect ideas and events in brilliant new ways.”
*Broken Voices: Postcolonial Entanglements and the Preservation of Korea’s Central Folksong Traditions*

“Hegemonic Mimicry is an impressive volume that outlines the reasons behind the recent global success of South Korean popular culture.... Kim’s erudition is considerable, something to be expected given his two earlier well-received monographs.”
*Asian Studies Review*

"Hegemonic Mimicry is a valuable and significant contribution to the literature on Korean popular culture studies by introducing the concept of ‘hegemonic mimicry’ in detail and approaching Korean popular culture in an interdisciplinary way. This feature of the book will attract scholars from various academic disciplines as well as university students from different backgrounds."
*LSE Review of Books*

“This book and its central premise will go far. Kim’s concept of and coinage of the term hegemonic mimicry alone will no doubt appear in countless essays, book chapters and discussions of South Korean popular culture. . . . Kim is the real deal, a genuine intellect and the book successfully captures the author’s voice and it is filled with insight that will be of interest to both cinema scholars and those who study Asian popular culture.”
*Asian Cinema*

"Hegemonic Mimicry is a critical addition to Korean popular culture studies literature and will surely be an essential foundation for future studies."
*Journal of Asian Studies*

"A timely response to the explosive demand for a textbook that provides both historical and theoretical frameworks to analyze the global popularity of contemporary South Korean popular culture, including K-pop music, cinema, television, and online subcultures."
*Cultural Critique*

"Hegemonic Mimicry is a timely book that provides an updated overview of Korean popular culture. ... [It] offers readers an insightful perspective on the media we consume every day."
*Korean Studies*