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42. Artist Q&A
- Author:
- Vicki Valosik and Helen Zughaib
- Publication Date:
- 12-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
- Abstract:
- Helen Zughaib, currently based in Washington D.C., is known for her colorful gouache works that emphasize hope and human dignity, even while depicting themes of mass displacement, political upheaval, and war. Born in Beirut but forced to evacuate during the 1975 civil war, Zughaib spent much of her life in Europe and other parts of the Middle East before coming to the United States to earn her BFA at Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. Her art has been exhibited at museums, galleries, embassies, and in private collections around the world, including at the White House, the Library of Congress, and the World Bank. Zughaib has served as a U.S. State Department Cultural Envoy to Europe and the Middle East and was recently awarded a grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. In November, she gave a talk at CCAS on her visual documentation of the Arab Spring, after which she shared the following reflections on her work.
- Topic:
- Arts, Culture, Arab Spring, and Memory
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, United States of America, North America, Washington, and D.C.
43. Reading the Arabesque with Kamal Boullata
- Author:
- Vicki Valosik and Kamal Boullata
- Publication Date:
- 12-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
- Abstract:
- World renowned artist Kamal Boullata reflects on his work, his years in Washington, and the early days of CCAS.
- Topic:
- Arts, Culture, Literature, and Higher Education
- Political Geography:
- Palestine, United States of America, Washington, and D.C.
44. A Place to Gather
- Author:
- Vicki Valosik, Isabel Roemer, and Nancy Howar
- Publication Date:
- 12-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
- Abstract:
- A profile on A. Joseph Howar, the CCAS benefactor behind one of Washington’s most iconic cultural and religious institutions. A. Joseph Howar, an immigrant from Palestine who became one of the most prominent Arab- Americans of the early 20th century, touched the lives of countless people during his 103+ years. A talented real-estate developer with an uncanny instinct for location, Mr. Howar was determined to give back to both his adopted country and his homeland. A proponent of education, he built a school and mosque in Palestine, and was the catalyst behind the creation of the Washington Islamic Center, which remains an important cultural and religious icon on Washington’s Embassy Row. Even closer to home, Howar’s legacy continues at Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, where for more than 25 years, the Howar family has generously funded a scholarship in Joseph’s memory for students of the Master of Arts in Arab Studies program.
- Topic:
- Religion, History, Immigration, Culture, and Higher Education
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Palestine, North America, and United States of America
45. Saudi Arabia’s Artists of Change
- Author:
- Sean Foley
- Publication Date:
- 12-2018
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
- Abstract:
- MAAS alum Sean Foley (‘00) discusses his forthcoming book, Changing Saudi Arabia: Art, Culture, and Society in the Kingdom.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Gender Issues, Arts, Natural Resources, Culture, and Authoritarianism
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Saudi Arabia, North America, United States of America, and Gulf Nations
46. Preserving a Genre under Duress
- Author:
- Brittni Foster
- Publication Date:
- 12-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
- Abstract:
- How a class assignment led to MAAS alum Dan Walsh’s lifelong passion for preserving Palestine’s visual heritage. When Dan Walsh (MAAS ’11) was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Marrakesh in the early 1970s, his language tutor encouraged him to practice his budding Arabic and Moroccan Darija skills by translating the posters that papered the buildings around town. Walsh, now the curator of the world’s largest collection of posters on Palestine, remembers how grateful he was for the break from verb conjugations but says he never could have imagined how that assignment would change the course of his career. He credits his hours spent walking the streets of Marrakech and Rabat reading posters—Arabic dictionary in hand—with not only improving his language skills, but also igniting what has become one of his life’s passions.
- Topic:
- Culture, Media, Peace Corps, and Higher Education
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, Palestine, North America, and United States of America
47. Reversed Ethnography in the Reception of the Korean Wave
- Author:
- Hyeri Jung
- Publication Date:
- 10-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Journal of Korean Studies
- Institution:
- International Council on Korean Studies
- Abstract:
- This paper unravels dynamic interactions between Korean popular culture and its fans in the United States, focusing on how cultural hybridity of the Korean Wave un/consciously facilitates soft power, and what sociocultural implications it might yield in global/international contexts. Employing various theoretical frameworks of globalization, critical/cultural media studies, hybridity, soft power, and fan studies, I take a qualitative methodological approach of what I call a reversed media ethnography: Examining the contraflow of Korean media culture on U.S. fans. I employ various qualitative and interpretive techniques including grounded theory to analyze the rich corpus of data I collected over a period of two years to examine the nature of transcultural media and fans of the Korean Wave in the United States. Overall, the findings of this paper suggest that the complex layers of hybridity embedded in Korean popular culture creates complicated webs of transculturality. The Korean Wave exemplifies strategically well-balanced cultural hybridity that arouses a certain feeling of affinity: Emotional proximity. Korean popular culture evokes continuous negotiations of identities and generates nonthreatening wholesome content that comfortably appeals to American fans with various ethnic, racial, social, and cultural backgrounds. The notion of uriness (we-ness in English), collective unity and solidarity, embedded in Korean popular culture and its fandom culture works as one of the multifaceted soft power in the eyes of American fans that leads to an alternative post-Western soft power. This study contends that it is not the so-called hybridized Korean popular culture per se that makes it transcultural, and global to some extent, but the often under-recognized vital agents in the global sphere: Legions of fans.
- Topic:
- Culture, Soft Power, Ethnography, and Music
- Political Geography:
- Asia, South Korea, North America, and United States of America
48. The U.S. Adaptation of Korea’s Unscripted Format in the New Korean Wave Era: A Case Study of Grandpas Over Flowers
- Author:
- Dal Yong Jin and Ju Oak Kim
- Publication Date:
- 10-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Journal of Korean Studies
- Institution:
- International Council on Korean Studies
- Abstract:
- The Korean unscripted format has recently reshaped media flows and practices on a global scale. This article, based upon a comparative analysis of Grandpas Over Flowers (tvN) and Better Late Than Never (NBC), explores how the Korean broadcasting industry has attracted Western broadcasting providers with its travel-based reality format, and how an American television network has produced its own version, negotiating the local specificity that the original series contained. Certainly, cultural differences in media production between the two societies are largely embedded in the localizing process. While Grandpas Over Flowers was dependent upon the long-standing friendship between veteran actors and their public images as fathers and grandfathers within society, Better Late Than Never employs veteran entertainers’ professional successes as the driving force for adventuring into exotic cultures in East Asia. This article claims that the Grandpas Over Flowers case evokes a new phase of the Korean Wave phenomenon, revealing a non-Western media player’s attempt at challenging the domination of United States and United Kingdom television formats in the global media industries.
- Topic:
- Mass Media, Culture, Media, and popular culture
- Political Geography:
- Asia, South Korea, North America, and United States of America
49. Staging Hallyu: K-Pop and K-Drama Reimagined in Asian American Theater
- Author:
- Jieun Lee
- Publication Date:
- 10-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Journal of Korean Studies
- Institution:
- International Council on Korean Studies
- Abstract:
- In the midst of a worldwide fascination with Hallyu, South Korea’s cultural products, the popularity of K-pop and K-drama has soared to unprecedented levels. In New York City, Korean American playwright Jason Kim’s Off-Broadway musical KPOP (2017) brought K-pop music and dance to the stage. In the Twin Cities, a Hmong American playwright May Lee-Yang set her play, The Korean Drama Addict’s Guide to Losing Your Virginity (2018), within her Hmong ethnic background, as a romantic satire and homage to K-drama. While both plays function superbly as theatrical entertainment, I argue that these works serve as critical investigations into the methods of creating and disseminating K-pop and K-drama. Both theater pieces bring up issues of racial, gender, sexual, national, and ethnic identities as they reimagine Hallyu in North America and assess its impact on Asian America.
- Topic:
- Culture, Ethnicity, Identities, Music, popular culture, and Theater
- Political Geography:
- Asia, South Korea, and United States of America
50. K-pop Fans’ Reaction Videos and Their Implications for Korean Language Learning
- Author:
- Soojin Ahn
- Publication Date:
- 10-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Journal of Korean Studies
- Institution:
- International Council on Korean Studies
- Abstract:
- As social media platforms such as YouTube have become important access points for Korean popular music (K-pop), international fans have enjoyed recording and sharing their responses to K-pop music videos on social media. In particular, reaction videos have been the most convenient and popular way for many international fans to share their opinions on and reactions to K-pop songs with others. This study aims to investigate the unique characteristics of reaction videos to share K-pop fans’ cultural experiences through YouTube videos and discuss the potential use of such fans’ learner motivation and learning environment for Korean language education. Four YouTube reaction videos were investigated through thematic analysis and through a discourse analysis informed by interactional sociolinguistics. The findings show how the reaction video creators build a community with other fans by establishing familiarity through agreement, considering the audience, and exchanging information, not only about a specific song, but also about K-pop in general and Korean Wave genres. These creators also demonstrated multiliteracies by expressing their opinions and feelings through facial expressions, visuals, and dance. These creators make their reaction videos regularly, proving their long-term enthusiasm for K-pop and the Korean Wave. This research offers important implications for future Korean language education, which will embrace diverse groups of international learners who actively participate in K-pop fan activities online.
- Topic:
- Culture, Social Media, Language, Music, and YouTube
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Asia, South Korea, Korea, and United States of America