K-Pop Resounding: The Meaning of K in Multiethnic K-pop

This talk explores the transnational aspects of K-pop, Korean popular music, and the complicated meaning of K. While K-pop constantly represents a specific ethnic-national identity, it is now common to see non-Korean and non-Asian musicians in the field. There are even K-pop groups consisting entirely of non-Asian members who promote themselves as K-pop. This brings about two fundamental questions: What does the K in K-pop mean if there is no Koreanness? What constitutes K-pop today? In this talk, Lee examines how the ethnic boundary of K-pop has expanded, how the meaning of K in K-pop is (re)interpreted by individuals, and why Koreanness is not essential but relational. In doing so, Lee argues that "K" in K-pop does not exist as a fixed concept but exists as a floating signifier. By focusing on multiethnic K-pop groups, Lee emphasizes that the idea of expendability is a crucial tool for understanding K-pop today. 

Wonseok Lee is a cultural musicologist whose research interests include Korean popular music and culture, globalization, transnationalism, musical identity, media studies, border theory, posthumanism in music. He has published articles in peer-reviewed journals, such as Journal of Popular Music Studies, Korean Journal of Popular Music, IASPM Journal, Journal of World Popular Music, and Rock Music Studies. He is now working on his first book project that examines how K-pop challenges traditional boundaries, including that K-pop should be performed by Koreans and that K-pop idols must be human, to see how the expanding boundaries of K-pop affect the way people view the genre. Wonseok received his PhD in Musicology (with emphasis on ethnomusicology) from the Ohio State University. Before coming to Yale, he was a lecturer in Korean Studies at Washington University in St. Louis where he taught K-pop, The Korean Wave, and Global Korean music.