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    Introduction: A Short History of Afro-Korean Music and Identity
    (Journal of World Popular Music, 2020-12) Saeji, CedarBough T.; Kim, Kyung Hyun
    [paragraph, not abstract] Though the tension between Korean business owners in America and African Americans during the 1992 Los Angeles riots and more recently post-George Floyd protests have grabbed the mainstream media’s attention, Koreans have been awkwardly caught between populations of white Americans and African Americans since the era of civil rights protests. Though blacks-only platoons were phased out during the Korea War (1950–53) by President Harry Truman, racial discrimination and segregation remained entrenched in barracks and in social life during the US military occupation of Korea throughout the latter part of the twentieth century. Camptown clubs for US military personnel in Korea were segregated—so much so that the violent protest described above broke out in 1971 motivated by black GIs upset by the de facto policies of segregation enacted by these clubs and their proprietors. It was Korean businesses that separated entertainers and sex workers who serviced white soldiers from those who serviced their black counterparts. More than two decades after the American military had desegregated, the racial tensions and disparities on US military bases continued, and extended to the nearby clubs and the music that they played. Desegregation was officially enacted by requiring music to be played for both black and white patrons. As stated by Capt. A. D. Malloy, who was then responsible for easing the racial tensions in the American military bases in Korea and headed the committee called GIT (Get It Together), “We check on the variety of music played in the clubs. They must mix it up; some soul, some rock, some country and western. If they don’t mix the music, you get … segregation” (Lea and Brown 1971: 12).
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    Protection and Transmission of Korean Folk Theatre
    (National Gugak Center, 2015) Saeji, CedarBough T
    [First two paragraphs] Without transmission, without passing on traditional knowledge, the arts will come to an end. In these pages, I will summarize my major findings related to the protection and transmission of yeonhui (Korean folk theatre). However, I ask the reader to consider this chapter as the broad brushstrokes of a much more complicated story, because there are significant differences in the transmission environments and practices among yeonhui groups– some unavoidable and related to their location or dramatic content, others tied to chance, such as the charisma of a leader. My own path to comprehending these processes was primarily gleaned from interviews and participant-observation, the standard tools of ethnographic research. After beginning formal research in 2004, I practiced one type of pungmul (drumming while dancing) and three different mask dance dramas in seven different settings. I also observed rehearsals and performances and talked with a range of practitioners and enthusiasts ranging from beginning students to National Human Treasures from dozens of arts, and from academics to employees at the Cultural Heritage Administration.
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    Cosmopolitan Strivings and Racialization: The Foreign Dancing Body in Korean Popular Music Videos
    (Peter Lang, 2016) Saeji, CedarBough T
    This chapter discusses visible non-Koreans as dancers or actors within music videos and what that says about cosmopolitan strivings.
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    An Unexpected Voice: Performance, Gender, and Protecting Tradition in Korean Mask Dance Dramas
    (Routledge, 2017) Saeji, CedarBough T
    The book chapter discusses the difficulties and tensions of preserving tradition in an art that traditionally was performed entirely by men, but now has many women involved.
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    The Bawdy, Brawling, Boisterous World of Korean Mask Dance Dramas
    (Cross Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, 2012) Saeji, CedarBough T
    Korean mask dance dramas are captivating and entrancing. Comedy, tragedy, and social commentary meld with energetic dance, distinctive masks, and lively music. These dramas are often colloquially and incorrectly referred to as talchum (“mask dance”) in Korean—in fact, talchum is one of the major variants of mask dance drama from Hwanghae Province in present-day North Korea. Performers of other variants have long objected to the broad application of the term (akin to calling all in-line skates “Rollerblades” or all MP3 players “iPods”). Only in the late 1990s did academia catch on, when two highly respected midcareer mask dance drama scholars, Bak Jintae (Daegu University) and Jeon Kyungwook (Korea University), began to use the terminology talnoli (“mask play”) and gamyeon-geuk (“mask drama”) in their publications. I needed to watch only one performance, in 1997, to fall in love with the mask dance dramas, but at first the many forms of the genre melded together in my mind. It took repeated exposure and study over more than a dozen years for me to see the profound similarities and differences among all of Korea’s mask dance dramas...
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    Drumming, Dancing and Drinking Makgeolli: Liminal Time-Travel through Intensive Camps Teaching Traditional Performing Arts
    (Journal of Korean Studies, 2013-06) Saeji, CedarBough T
    The Republic of Korea has been protecting the ephemeral performative artistic and cultural phenomena collectively labeled intangible cultural heritage since passing the Cultural Property Protection Law in 1962. This long history of performance protection has positioned the Republic of Korea as an example for efforts around the world to protect intangible cultural heritage. The focus of South Korean protection efforts is performance and transmission; this article addresses the transmission occurring through intensive camps. Participant observation-based ethnographic research was conducted at two sites, the training camps for the mask dance drama Kosŏng Ogwangdae and for the farmer’s drumming and dancing group Imsil P’ilbong Nongak, to determine the effectiveness of the camps in transmitting performing arts knowledge. The young people who enroll in these camps represent the future of the South Korean traditional performing arts; some students are bound for professional performance, while others are active members of their respective preservation associations. The camps employ full-time, professional performers and create a pool of audience members and arts advocates. The students of the camps build community while they time travel to a liminal space where every day is the day before or the day of the big festival; their positive experience of Korean tradition leaves them connected to and supportive of the traditional arts.
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    Juvenile Protection and Sexual Objectification: Analysis of the Performance Frame in Korean Music Television Broadcasts
    (Acta Koreana, 2013-12) Saeji, CedarBough T
    The wide-spread sexual objectification of women in Korean popular music performance subconsciously teaches men and boys that women and girls are sexual objects that exist to please them. Simultaneously sexual objectification disempowers girls and women by emphasizing superficial beauty. Although many decisions related to Kpop choreography, costumes, or lyrics may be attributed to music management companies, this article analyzes how music television programs Inkigayo (Seoul Broadcasting System) and Music Core (Munhwa Broadcasting Company) contribute to the sexual objectification of women through the ways that emcees frame performances and the ways the camera draws attention to sexualized body parts. In August 2012 racy performances by the girl group Kara raised public debate and spurred calls for amendments to the Juvenile Protection Law. At that time commentary focused on the impact of sexually provocative performances on young people. The law places responsibility for monitoring content onto the content producers and broadcasters, yet frame analysis of Kara’s performances, compared with performances in early 2013, demonstrated that neither Inkigayo nor Music Core had changed the sexually objectifying performance frame on their shows. The final version of the revised law, passed in March 2013, does not contain amendments to address these issues more stringently than in the past.
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    The Republic of Korea and Curating Displays of Koreanness: Guest Editor's Introduction
    (Acta Koreana, 2014-12) Saeji, CedarBough T
    [First paragraph] The four thematically-linked articles in this journal were developed from papers that were originally presented as part of a conference panel from the 7th Kyujanggak International Symposium on Korean Studies held at Seoul National University in August, 2014. We had discussed their publication and proposed the theme issue to Acta Koreana prior to the conference. Thanks to peer reviewers who were willing to meet short deadlines and all the efforts of the journal’s editorial staff, we have managed to get our four accepted papers ready for publication in time for this December 15, 2014 issue of Acta Koreana.
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    The Audience as a Force for Preservation: A Typology of Audiences for the Traditional Performing Arts
    (Korea Journal, 2016-06) Saeji, CedarBough T
    The Republic of Korea’s robust system for protection of traditional performing arts has insulated the traditional arts, ensuring that a population of master artists continued to practice their arts even as Korea rapidly modernized. This protection allows people in twenty-first century Seoul to attend performances of raucous mask dance dramas, evocative epic songs, and sedate literati ensembles. However, do they? The audience for Korean traditional arts is eroding, but ample government support has removed artists and venues from the urgency of attracting new and younger audiences. This article describes reception techniques of traditional performance that are dying out in Korea, proposes an audience typology, and discusses the varied challenges of attracting and maintaining an audience. Although examples are taken from Korea, parallels exist in other countries and with other genres around the world.
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    Creating Regimes of Value through Curation at the National Museum of Korea
    (Acta Koreana, 2014-12) Saeji, CedarBough T
    The National Museum of Korea (NMK) is a site for teaching its visitors about the wonders of the Korean past through exhibition of exemplary art works. Through participant-observation in a Korean art history program organized by the NMK, museum visits, an interview with a senior curator, and an analysis of the NMK’s self-published book 100 Highlights of the National Museum of Korea, I interrogate the museum’s ideology in order to gain a better understanding of the messages about Koreanness communicated to the museum’s visitors. I am interested in the curatorial choices made by the museum that may ideologically condition spectators to associate Korean artistic excellence with Buddhism. I combine an analysis of language used in curation of Buddhist art on museum labels and displays, and within the NMK’s self-published book of 100 museum highlights, with a discussion that illustrates how the NMK creates new regimes of value in its presentation of Buddhist objects as national heritage.
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    It's Fantastic Baby: Eine Einführung in die Koreanische Popmusik
    (Mitteilungen des Museums für Völkerkunde Hamburg, 2017) Saeji, CedarBough T
    K-Pop, oder koreanische Popmusik, ist eines der spannendsten kulturellen Formate. Es ijemandem zu erklären, der die Form nicht kennt, kann jedoch etwas kompliziert sein. Dieses viel gehörte (und gesehene) musikalische Format kombiniert gebräuchliche Wendungen, einfache Instrumentation und Konventionen, die man in Popmusik rund um die Welt hören kann, innerhalb eines territorial verorteten oder hybridisierten Formats. Es ist kein Genre – der K-Pop-Sound ist sehr variabel, und gerade fließende Genregrenzen sind eines der ersten Merkmale, das die Fans in ihm antreffen. Ein- und dieselbe Gruppe, oder sogar ein- und dasselbe Album, können verschiedene Genres zeigen. Populäre Songs in letzter Zeit kombinierten Elemente aus Trap, Reggae, R&B, langsamen Balladen, Alternativ-Rock und natürlich Hip-Hop im selben Album.
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    Replacing Faith in Spirits with Faith in Heritage: A Story of the Management of the Gangneung Danoje Festival
    (Routledge, 2018) Saeji, CedarBough T
    First paragraph of introduction: The government of the Republic of Korea (hereafter Korea) first began to protect intangible cultural heritage on a national level in 1962 when the Cultural Property Protection Law (CPPL) came into effect. This comprehensive heritage legislation established a methodology through which the rich performative and artistic traditions of the country could be saved from extinction (or resurrected). Each certified artist was to transmit his or her skills and regularly perform or exhibit artistry. From March 2016, intangible cultural heritage was removed from the CPPL and is now governed by the Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding and Promotion Law (ICH-SPL). The implications for Korean intangible heritage managed for both preservation and promotion will become clearer with time, but it is significant that the new law was deemed necessary to bring Korean management of intangible cultural heritage into greater conformance with UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003).
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    No Frame to Fit It All: An Autoethnography on Teaching Undergraduate Korean Studies, on and off the Peninsula
    (Acta Koreana, 2018-12) Saeji, CedarBough T
    In the past two decades, Korean Studies has expanded to become an interdisciplinary and increasingly international field of study and research. While new undergraduate Korean Studies programs are opening at universities in the Republic of Korea (ROK) and intensifying multi-lateral knowledge transfers, this process also reveals the lack of a clear identity that continues to haunt the field. In this autoethnographic essay, I examine the possibilities and limitations of framing Korea as an object of study for diverse student audiences, looking towards potential futures for the field. I focus on 1) the struggle to escape the nation-state boundaries implied in the habitual terminology, particularly when teaching in the ROK, where the country is unmarked (“Han’guk”), the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is marked (“Pukhan”), and the diaspora is rarely mentioned at all; 2) the implications of the expansion of Korean Studies as a major within the ROK; 3) in-class navigations of Korean national pride, the trap of Korean uniqueness and (self-)orientalization and attitudes toward the West; 4) the negotiation of my own status as a white American researching/teaching about Korea, often to Koreans; 5) reactions to the (legitimate) demands of undergraduate Korean Studies majors to define the field and its future employment opportunities. Finally, I raise some questions about teaching methodologies in Korean Studies. Drawing on my experiences with diverse groups of students, I ask those involved in this field to consider with me the challenges emerging in a time of rapid growth.
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    Borrowed National Bodies: Ideological Conditioning and Idol-Logical Practices of K-pop Cover Dance
    (Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch, 2019) Saeji, CedarBough T
    This study investigates the ways the South Korean government and other affiliated organizations use the popular practice of performing choreography to Korean popular music, or K-pop cover dance, to build nationalism in Koreans and soft power for Korea overseas. Cover dances generally have one benefit for the original performers; covers can strengthen the perception of popularity of a song or a group. However, the benefits that accrue elsewhere are wide-ranging. Dance instructors may find eager paying learners, university classes may recruit new students, and the Republic of Korea harnesses the enthusiasm of dancers to promote everything related to Korea. This study, a continuation of my long-term work on cover dance, is based on a close reading of the KBS television program K-Pop World Festival 2018. The larger project includes observation of cover dancers at practice and in cover dance competitions, interviews with organizers, Korean diplomats, dance professionals in the K-pop world, and cover dance participants, as well as online data collection. As Korea struggles with a low economic growth rate, high youth unemployment, and a host of social problems that are increasing bitterness and dissatisfaction, the KBS program and similar cultural productions provide a different perspective on Korea. In this paper I argue that the coverage of K-pop fans from around the world on Korean television essentializes foreign places and people with a singular focus: to prove the attractiveness of Korea to a Korean audience.
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    Globalization and the Chinese Muslim Community in Southwest China
    (2011-05) Brose, Michael C.
    Is globalization a good thing when it comes to religion and religious practice gener-ally in China? What contributions might globalization have on the practice of religion, or more broadly, on social transformation, in China? Focusing more specifically on Islam in China, is it also subject to forces of globalization? If so, will that encounter result in more or less social and political power to Muslims in China? Is Islam antithetical to or a part of modernization? These are just some of the questions that are raised in thinking about the role of Islam in China today as related to the theme of this special issue, “religion and globalization in Asia.” This paper uses two case studies, recent mosque construction projects and the development of a new Institute of Arabic Studies in Yunnan Province, China, to understand if and how global trends have affected the Islamic community and practice of Islam in one region of China. Southwest China presents a unique context for the role of Islam in Chinese society because this area is largely free of the hot ethno-religious issues that plague other parts of China. Yunnan is also home to twenty-six official minority groups, but of these the Chinese Muslims have been largely ignored by scholars. It is clear, however, that Chinese Muslims are becoming important economic and political actors in Yunnan, judged by the kinds of mosques and educational activities they are sponsoring. They present an excellent opportunity to probe the impact of globalization on local forms of Islam, to understand how Islam might become a strategic social and political resource for the Yunnan Chinese Muslim community, how identity politics serves this group’s interests, and to demonstrate the importance of regional particularities in understanding “Islam in China.”
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    Islam in China
    (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013) Brose, Michael C.
    When you, kind reader, think of the “Islamic World,” is China included? When you think about the kinds of religions practiced in China, does Islam come to mind? You will undoubtedly conjure up images of Daoism, Buddhism, qigong and other body-cultivation techniques, and perhaps Confucian family rituals like “ancestor worship.” Connecting “Islam” to “China” may also bring to mind sectarian violence involving some members of the Turkic Uyghur community in northwestern China. Although Muslims have lived in China since the seventh century and there are today somewhere between twenty and sixty million Muslims in China, very few histories of China and very few works that describe or analyze the “Islamic World” include any discussion of Islam in China. This is a surprising lack of recognition given that there are almost as many Muslims in China as the entire population of Syria or Saudi Arabia, and more than in Malaysia!
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    Reviewed Work: The Empire of the Qara Khitai in Eurasian History: Between China and the Islamic World
    (Journal of Song-Yuan Studies, 2007) Brose, Michael C.
    One of the most interesting but, until now, least-studied regional empires in pre-Mongol Central Asia was that created by the Qara Khitai. It was truly an empire "in the middle." Located in one of the most remote regions of Eurasia, between Lakes Balqash and Issyk Ku! in present-day Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, the Qara Khitai governed a highly disparate group of peoples and client states that shared no common language, religion, or culture. They created an empire that differed considerably from neighboring sedentary or nomadic empires and was known by at least two quite different names, Qara Khitai and Western Liao.
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    Reviewed Work: Twentieth Century China: An Annotated Bibliography of Reference Works in Chinese, Japanese, and Western Languages: Subjects
    (China Review International, 2004) Brose, Michael C.
    Anyone who has tried to find a comprehensive list of reference works on any aspect of modern China knows just how piecemeal, frustrating, and time-consuming the process can be. James Cole is attempting to ease the process somewhat, for scholars and librarians, by compiling a bibliography of reference works published mainly during the thirty-year period from 1964-1994. Now that the first section, organized by subject headings, has been published, we can appreciate the utility and monumental scope of his work. This first section contains some 12 , 200 entries, arranged alphabetically by title within subject headings, ranging from "Abbreviations" to "Youth and Youth Movements" (there are approximately four hundred subject headings), that describe reference works on modern China in Chinese, Japanese, and Western languages. This is the first of an eventual three-part bibliography; section 2 will be organized by "Persons" and section 3 by "Places."
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    Reviewed Work: Yunnan: Periphery or Center of an International Network?
    (China Review International, 2010) Brose, Michael C.
    For those of us whose work focuses on Yunnan, there is often a sense of the liminal that seems to be a part of the territory. It is a given that Yunnan’s historic, geographic, and social landscape is heavily textured and not easy to navigate. And while contemporary state narratives make it clear that Yunnan is part of China, this is less clear once one attempts to find one’s way over and through that historic, geographic, and social terrain. Bin Yang’s energetic new book provides us with maps that make sense of Yunnan from these perspectives, and it should be read by anyone interested in this fascinating province.
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    Reviewed Work: Hok-lam Chan, Ming Taizu (r. 1368-98) and the Foundation of the Ming Dynasty in China
    (China Review International, 2012) Brose, Michael C.
    This variorum collection of eight articles written by Hok-lam Chan, all focused on Zhu Yuanzhang and the early years of the dynasty he founded, comes to us in the same year as his passing. For anyone interested in the Ming dynasty, this will be an important collection of seminal works. One of the great assets of these Variorum Collected Studies volumes is that they bring together articles that may be difficult to obtain or little known outside of specialist circles. This volume is particularly helpful since it selects some of the most outstanding studies by Hok-lam Chan on the focused period of the early Ming. This is important because Hok-lam Chan’s erudition extended well beyond the Ming, and he was prodigious in his writing. Hok-lam Chan began his professional work of some forty-four years researching the non-Han conquest dynasties Jin and Yuan, only later moving into the Ming era. A brief scan through a recently published bibliography of Chan’s work indicates his catholic interests and enormous productivity; he authored some nine monographs and collections and ninety essays and articles in Chinese. His English-language contributions were equally prolific with twelve monographs or collections and fifty-eight essays and articles.