Tag: popculture

How Candlegirl and V Took on 2MB

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This entry is part 17 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

It feels so long ago, but I still think it’s worth a look back: My article on the SFnal side of the anti-2MB protests that rocked Seoul this past summer, titled “How Candle Girl and V Took on 2MB”, is now up at the excellent Clarkesworld. It touches on the political reception and adaptation of foreign SF, techno-protest culture, Korean politics and food-culture, and more. Not quite something for everyone, but lots of stuff swirling around the nexus there. The ending is a bit, well, dated — I wrote it back in August, and it sounds like the protests just …

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More SF Goodness, Including a Bunch of Korean SF in Translation…

gordsellar2 Comments
This entry is part 16 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

I’m thinking I should start a reference page for all the Korean-SF goodness I’ve been coming across, and just link my post series from there. For those living in Seoul and interested in seeing SF films with other SF enthusiasts, editor/critic/translator Park Sang-Jun has teamed up with the proprietor of a newly-relocated cinema in Shinchon to put together Cinema Odyssey an SF & Fantasy film club that will meet periodically to view screenings of SF films. (That link is the Naver cafe, so you need to be logged into Naver to access it.) I met with Park on Friday just …

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A Few Words About the Unsayability of Things Most Worth Talking About.

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I assigned the Nora Ephron essay “A Few Words About Breasts” to my essay-writing class (Bulgasari helpfully provided a link to that essay in this comment), and the reaction was quite interesting. Some of the students claimed they were so shocked that teenaged American girls are so anxious about breast development, claiming adolescent Korean girls aren’t. (Lime calls bullshit on that, however.) Others admitted they were — and in a couple of cases, still are — anxious about it. Others found the myths Ephron discusses amusing, like this one about her friend’s response to the failure of young Ms. Ephron’s …

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Matt on Symmetry in The Host

gordsellar3 Comments
This entry is part 14 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

For those into Korean cinema, Korean SF, or both: Matt’s written up a good post on The Host and the role of symmetry in the film, and linked my posts on the Host (starting here). I’ve commented to expand (slightly) on his observations. Check it out! As for me, I’m planning on working on a paper on the film and its political elements, somewhat expanding on my observations in the posts I’ve made here, and on the paper I’ll be presenting in a couple of weeks. I’ll be working on that sometime in the next couple of months, time permitting, …

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