transPOP:  Korea Vietnam Remix Symposium
Saturday February 14, 2008    10am-5pm


Institute for East Asian Studies with Center for Korean Studies
2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor, Berkeley, CA 94720-2318; 510-642-2809


The transPOP: Korea Vietnam Remix Symposium is held in conjunction with a traveling contemporary art exhibition of the same title that is currently on view at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco until March 15, 2009.  This exhibition introduces a dynamic mix of sixteen critically acclaimed artists from Korea, Vietnam, and the United States, signaling an unprecedented engagement with the rich historic and contemporary linkages between Korea and Vietnam.  The featured artworks variously engage the interconnections between the two countries, including the intersections of history, trauma, and contemporary popular culture.


The symposium seeks to build upon—and expand—the critical discourse examining Korean and Vietnamese historical and contemporary cultural, political, and socio-economic interactions.  The symposium brings together some of the leading scholars, artists, media producers, and activists to explore the intersections of contemporary popular culture–including hallyu and V-pop–and the legacies of historical trauma in Korea and Vietnam and their diasporas.  A better understanding of the development and dynamics of the Korean Wave and V-pop can be gained from a broader discussion of the transnational circuits and flows of popular culture and desire that represent and are constituent parts of the intertwined constructions of Asian modernity and emerging subjectivities, examined within a historical context.  The proceedings also seeks to contribute to the nascent, comparative scholarship on Korea's substantial involvement in the American War in Vietnam and its legacies, as well as the current, close cultural and economic relationship that has developed between the two countries, and the triangulated relationship between Korea, Vietnam and the United States, highlighted by the war.

10-10:15am    Opening Remarks
Trinh T. Minh-ha (Rhetoric, Gender and Women's Studies, UC Berkeley)

10:15-11:15am    Selections of Vietnamese and Korean pop: features, television dramas, pop music and independent shorts
Việt Lê (American Studies and Ethnicity, USC) and Yong Soon Min (Studio Art, UC Irvine)

11:15-NOON   Modern Love: Discrepant Modernities and New Subjectivities
Roundtable discussion with Lan Duong, Kyu Hyun Kim, Việt Lê, Yong Soon Min

NOON –1:00pm    LUNCH BREAK

1-3:00pm   Remembering and Representation: Transnational Histories
moderated by Việt Lê
Hyun Sook Kim (Sociology, Wheaton College)
Lanthao Lam (Artist, NYC)
Viet Nguyen (American Studies and Ethnicity, USC)
Christine Hong (Korean Studies, UC Berkeley)

Respondent: Jonathan Hall (Comparative Literature, UC Irvine)

3:00-3:15pm        COFFEE BREAK

3:15- 5:00pm   Media and Migration
Moderated by Yong Soon Min
Lan Duong (Media and Cultural Studies, UCR)
Sowon Kwon (Artist, NYC)
Kyu Hyun Kim (History, UCD and film critic)

Respondent: Isabelle Thuy Pelaud (Asian American Studies, San Francisco State University)

Program is made possible with support from Institute for East Asian Studies (IEAS) and Center for Korean Studies of UC Berkeley, Tides Foundation, Wallace Foundation, W. L. S. Spencer Foundation, Korea Foundation, and Diasporic Vietnamese Arts Network (DVAN).