Research Projects

Ever since I got this job (a job that I am absolutely enjoying but being a first year professor with a full teaching load means a lot of class prep, all the time) I haven't had much time to work on my own research. Of course all professors say this, all the time. In fact, even the professors who only teach a couple of classes per semester and have taught the same darn classes several times over the years say this-- we all hope that means they're constantly updating and improving their classes (or it means their energy levels are slipping, or they've been side-tracked by concerns outside academia, or...).

At the moment I'm writing a blog to inspire myself to a more organized approach to my current research projects.

1). Conference Presentation Due in 32 Days (and an edited chapter version due to the reviewers shortly after that):
"Authenticity and Sexuality: The Foreign Dancing Body in Korean Popular Music Videos"
I'm excited about this one, but I'm having a hard time finding any mental energy to work on the background theoretical research for the paper. I want to bring in ideas about 'economics of attention' and racialization. I've ordered a bunch of fun looking books for the library on dance that should include some interesting ideas to incorporate and just need to find time to skim them to find those ideas! Just in case you're super interested, this paper brings attention to bear on K-pop videos released in the last 12 months, theorizing their use of obviously foreign bodies in three primary ways. Here are examples of the three types:

Taeyang's Ringa-Linga (Dance version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho1y-4mXIL0
TVXQ's Something https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9HBT6sRSZ8
Gary's Shower Later https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgfuaDS-S2c
And here are a few of the visuals I'm using in the paper and presentation (I may change what all I use, but...)

2). Conference Presentation that may or may not be accepted for the fall:
"Yellow Ribbons: Performing Grief in the Wake of the Sewol Tragedy"
This paper doesn't just talk about grief (and anger) but specifically about how people's performance of grief was regulated by social pressures (and even by directives from their employers). It has, as you could predict a special focus on things that deal with actual performance, and the lens for the entire paper is a performance of Jindo Ssitgimgut (a ritual for the dead from the region where the ferry tragedy occurred) performed by performers who are not shamans, but refocused on the Sewol victims and decorated with yellow ribbons.

Here are a few random photos that I've started to collect to use in the paper.

3). I have an abstract submitted to be part of a conference panel this fall that I really expect to be accepted that I currently am considering folding into the paper above. The original paper, "Memory, Heritage, and Authenticity in Staged Shamanic Ritual: The Case of "O-Gu-Gut for Mr. Heo Chang-yeol" was going to be about non-shamans conducting shamanic ceremony as performance (and the larger topic of evolution of Korean traditional performance). I'm still really excited about the larger topic, but may take the specific performance named in the title out of the focal role for the paper.

4). The paper I presented at AAS needs to be revised. I was going to present this again in August, but instead I'm going to chair that panel and not present my paper. However, the AAS and the August panel at Kyujanggak are planning to collectively submit our work for journal publication as a themed issue-- I need to get my article finished as soon as possible to make sure this can happen! We even have a journal that's interested and should hear within a month if we're getting the go ahead from the editorial board.

I am sure I'll change the name, but this project is called:
"Framing Memory in Korea: State Ideologies in the Modern Museum" 
and just for consistency I was going to add some photos, but apparently they aren't roaming this computer.

5. Revising the English for consistency in a book for the National Gugak Center on Yeonhi- Korean Folk Theatre (this is ready for me, but I'm not ready till mid-June for it).

Those are the immediate projects. In addition to those I have several in-progress projects, all of which are losing steam under the class prep and mountain of grading to be done. I've also been asked to be part of some other projects, all of them sound so exciting and fascinating! I've got to stay busy, but it's pretty grand to spend all day, every day, doing what I want to do.