We invite papers on the topic of Sino-Korean Screen Relations for a symposium on 16-17th January 2020. The Confucius Institute funded symposium will bring together scholars of Film, TV and Screen Media Studies to explore historical and contemporary relations between Sinophone and Korean-language screen media. It will take place at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK, (close to the Lake District, Manchester and Liverpool). Accommodation, refreshments and limited post-grad travel subsidies will be provided to selected presenters. We particularly welcome papers from scholars from across the Sinophone and Koran-language cultural centres and diasporas. Selected papers will be offered publication opportunities in an edited collection. The language of the symposium will be English.
‘Sino-Korean screen relations’ is a significant and under-studied research area. It includes relations between the two largest and most influential contemporary screen media spheres in the East Asian region. However, the emphasis on relations gestures beyond the concept of distinct Sinophone and Korean-language spheres of cultural (re)production, and beyond dominant national ideologies and nation-based media historiography. Instead, it re-conceptualises Sino-Korean screen media as intricately interlinked through diverse yet disjunctive webs of historical and contemporary relationships. These encompass Trans-Asian human, media, format, finance and technology flows; state, industrial, and (inter)textual relations of similarity, difference, collaboration and competition; and relations of connection, appropriation, exclusion and ‘othering’. Concomitantly, the formulation of ‘Sinophone’ and ‘Korean-language’ encompasses all media in Chinese dialects, as well as Korean-language media produced by North and South Koreans, Korean Chinese and other diasporic Korean cultures. This symposium builds on growing body of literature around Sino-Korean screen relations. In his seminal 2016 paper, Chris Berry calls for a transnational cinema research project that transcends the methodologies and ideologies of both nationalism and globalisation by tracing the history of ‘disjunctive and discontinuous’ connections between Sino-Korean screen media. While contributing to this project, the symposium also seeks to explore the networks of contemporary Sino-Korea screen relations. Whilst augmenting existing research trajectories on reception (e.g. Lu Chen 2019), production and co-production (e.g. Jin 2016; Jin and Su 2019), and regional circulations (e.g. Chua Beng Huat 2012), the symposium particularly welcomes papers that explore the mutually constitutive effects of Sino-Korean screen relations on Sinophone/Korean-langue texts. In short, what effect do the two cultural spheres have on each other? For example, how does production with Sinophone audiences in mind impact South Korean tv dramas, and how do PCR TV shows adapt to the popularity of South Korean imports?
In line with its explicit focus on the implications of such interconnectivities across the history of Sino-Korean screen media, the symposium invites papers and panels on any relations between Sinophone and Korean-language media. These could include, but are not limited to, the following:
- The impact of Chinese markets on Korean screen media.
- The impact of Korean screen media on Chinese media production.
- Unequal flows of media, such as TV drams, between Sinophone and Korean-language spheres.
- Constructions of Korean, Chinese and Korean Chinese people in Korean and Chinese screen media.
- Korean Chinese film and screen media produced in China and Korea.
- Images of Korean Chinese in Chinese and Korean media
- Media by and/or about North Koreans in China
- Unequal global image flows, such as the relatively greater number of images of Chinese people in South Korean films than of Koreans in Chinese films.
- Trans-border production practices, such as Koreans working in 1960-70s Hong Kong
- Reception issues, such as screenings of South Korean film in 1960s Taipei, or North Korean films in 1960-70s Beijing.
- Korean-Language and Sinophone live-streaming media.
- Queer screen cultures in the Korean-language and Sinophone spheres.
- North/South Korean and Chinese memories of the Korean War in Film
- The regional circulation of stars and idols from diverse Korean and Sinophone popular culture industries.
- Sinophone/Korean TV formats.
- Sino-Korean co-productions in any screen media.
- Comparisons between ‘New Wave’ cinemas in different Korean/Sinophone cultures.
- Constructions of local landscapes in Korean, Cantonese, Mandarin and Hokkien/Fujian films.
- Manchuria in Chinese and Korean cinema history.
- Representations of Japanese in North/South Korean and Sinophone cinemas.
- Sino-Korean genre relations, especially in martial arts and gangster films.
- Sinophone and Korean-language documentary practices.
- Anime relations
- Sino-Korean human relations in screen media production.
- Imperial-era Sino-Korean ([Tang, Yuan, Ming, Qin]-[Choseon, Koryo, Shilla]) relations in Korean and Sinophone film.
Please send abstracts (250 words) and short bio (100 words) to Sino-Korean@uclan.ac.uk (or mplaice@uclan.ac.uk) by 7th November 2019. Selected papers will be informed by 15th November 2019. Full papers (max 6000 words Chicago Reference style) should be sent by 6th January 2019.