Professor Younghan Cho read Hallyu as a new chapter in global popular culture and explained the possibility and the limits of new globalism with Hallyu. Prof. Cho comments that “Hallyu nowadays disrupts the American-centred popular culture and introduces a new discourse of modernity.” However, Prof. Cho also criticised the limitation of Hallyu, due to its dependency on nationalism while deepening capitalism. Finally, Prof. Cho argued that “the future of Hallyu should focus not on itself but on its role in representing the minority cultures and mediating global mobility based on race and gender.”
Professor Cho earned a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and currently serves as a professor at the Graduate School of International and Area Studies, as well as the director of the Korea Phonology Research Centre at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. His research focuses on East Asian popular culture and modernity, in addition to cultural economics in the context of Korea and Asia. Prof. Cho’s publications include books like Understanding Hallyu and Yellow Pacific: East Asia and Multiple Modernities, and articles such as “Mediating the East Asian Olympics (2018-2022),” and “In and Out of South Korea: Examining Inter-Asian Mobilities in Higher Education.”
