Course Description
A survey of fiction films on distinct characteristics of Korean culture. A wide range of works on spiritual traditions and material culture in Korea will be examined, but the main emphasis will be on films inspired by literature, visual arts, music, and performing arts in the modern and pre-modern periods.
Athena Title
KOREAN CULTURE
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
In this course students will survey various aspects of Korean culture as they are represented in fiction films from South Korea. A wide range of works on spiritual traditions and material culture in Korea will be examined, but the main emphasis will be on films inspired by literature, visual arts, music, and performing arts in the modern and pre-modern periods. By discussing and writing on prominent themes and forms of Korean culture, students will enhance their understanding of Korean society and people in national and transnational contexts.
Topical Outline
Week 1: Introduction History of Korean cinema Characteristics of Korean film culture Week 2: Hometown in My Heart dir. Yun Yonggyu (1949) Ham Sed's play A Little Monk (1947) Comparison with Chu Ky's A Little Monk (2003) Week 3: The Stray Bullet dir. Yu Hynmok (1961) Yi Pmsns post-war novel The Stray Bullet (1959) Emergence and development of Expressionism in Korean cinema Week 4: Mama and the Border dir. Shin Sangok (1961) Chu Yoss sort story Mama and the Border (1935) Realism and Modernism in Korean literature and film Influence of the traditional Korean ink painting on the early 1960s Korean Golden-age cinema Week 5: Sopyonje dir. Im Kwontaek Im (1993) Yi Chngjuns short stories Sopyonje (1976) and The Chnghaktong Journeyman (1979) Itinerant pansori singers Introduction of Western music to Korea and colonial modernity Week 6: Chunhyang dir. Im Kwontaek (2000) Generic evolution of the Tale of Chunhyang from a shaman song to a film South and North Korean film adaptations of the Tale of Chunhyang Traditional outdoor performing arts and the proscenium Week 7: Farewell, My Darling dir. Park Chulsoo (1993) Confucian funerary rite as a form of folk drama Meta-fiction and reflexivity in Korean cinema Week 8: Painted Fire dir. Im Kwontaek (2002) Chang Sngup and major painting styles in late Chosn Calligraphy as literature and as a visual art Week 9: Hwang Chini dir. Chang Yunhyn (2007) Shijo poetry Kisaeng as proto-typical women artists in pre-modern Korea Novels and films on Hwang Chini, the legendary 16th-century poetess Week 10: The King and the Clown dir. Yi Chunik (2005) Satire in the mask-dance genre Melodrama in Korean literature and film Gender politics and homosexuality in Confucian feudal society Week 11: Scandal dir. Yi Chaeyong (2003) Korean version of Christopher Hamptons Dangerous Liaisons (1985) Cultural impact of Christianity on late Chosn society Week 12: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring dir. Kiduk Kim (2003) The Heart Sutra as a literary text Influence of Sn Buddhism on Korean cinema Week 13: Memories of Murder dir. Pong Chunho (2003) Yi Kwangrims play Please Come and See Me (1996) Detective film genre in Korean cinema Relationship between theater and cinema in Korea Week 14: Old Boy dir. Park Chanwook (2003) Manhwa, post-modernism, and Korean film Characteristics of contemporary Korean popular culture Inter-Asian cultural exchange and the global film market Week 15: Conclusion Contemporary visual culture and Korean identity in national and transnational contexts
Syllabus