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On Monday, November 11, Millie Creighton, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, will come to CU to give a talk about the popularity of Korean popular culture in Japan. In this talk, entitled “Japanese Fandom and the Korean Wave: Transforming Japan-Korea Relations, Race, Ethnicity, and Gender through Popular Culture,” Professor Creighton will look at the popularity of the Korean Wave in Japan and some of the potential social changes or challenges it inspired. Tracing the introduction and rise of the Korean Wave through television dramas in Japan, and subsequent Japanese drama tourism to Korea, Professor Creighton explores how the ‘ethnic erotic economy’ for women within Japan (once emphasizing White Western males) shifted to Korean men, and how the intensive fandom of so-called middle-aged Japanese women challenged age, race, ethnic, and gender hierarchies within Japanese society while giving voice to a category who previously felt unempowered and little listened to or noticed.

In addition to age and gender challenges, Professor Creighton addresses issues of minorities and communities of ‘ethnic others’ in two countries once strongly proclaiming identities based on homogeneity now attempting to understand ‘multiculturalism.’ Looking at more recent ramifications of the Korean Wave in Japan, she addresses its place in Japan’s on-going work, leisure and entertainment culture of established adults, while exploring how it is linked to explorations of ‘gender bending’ in both societies, particularly among youth. She also addresses how the popularity of the Korean Wave in Japan, as well as the backlash against it, raises issues of difficult political and cultural relations between Japan, South Korea, North Korea, and at times China.

This event will be on Monday, November 11, at 5:00 p.m., in Hellems 252.

Sponsored by the Center for Asian Studies, the Korea Foundation, the Northeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies, and the President's Fund for the Humanities.

For more information about this event and for a map of the building location, please click here.