Recent Books

I’ve been reading a fair bit this year, as far as my standards go. More than usual, anyway. This is everything so far, though, of course, a few of those I gave up on and didn’t finish: I’ve been feeling a little disappointed lately in how so much of the SFF world online is so busy talking about scandals and outrages that we never seem to talk about the books anymore. Short stories, too, but, well, that’s for another post. So I figured: do my bit. Post about what I’ve read lately. Part of why I stopped was because–on some very bad …

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Clueless Reviews, Complicit Academics, and Hallyu Nationalism

Update (1 May 2015): My more formal review of The Korean Popular Culture Reader was published in Kyoto Journal 82, for those interested. Original Post: First, the clueless book reviewer: I’ve submitted my own review already–it’s apparently somewhere along the process toward becoming forthcoming, over at The Kyoto Journal–and I can say  found the book disappointing, but not for the same reasons as Bradley Winterton: I am sorry to have to say it, but The Korean Popular Culture Reader is close to the most disappointing book I have ever had to review. Not long ago I found myself engrossed in a Korean TV …

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A Little Context Regarding Korean 먹방 (“Broadcast Eating”)

So, the global news has been abuzz with the latest story about South Korea, which is that some Koreans are making vast piles of money by eating massive dinners on live broadcast online. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCkUMIDcylM No, I’ve never tuned in. (I hate watching people eat with their mouths open, and that’s pretty common in Korea. So, uh, no thanks.) But yes, it’s real: where, in the west, strangers would only send that cam-girl above money if she took off her clothes online, Koreans send her money just to watch her eat.  There’s a context, though, that these the news stories seem constantly …

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