KAIST STP cordially invites you to the following seminar. 
If you need more, just feel free to contact Jin-Yeong Park. (alissa@kaist.ac.kr) 

* Speaker: Dong-Won Kim, Visiting Professor, Harvard University / KAIST STP
* Topic: Star Wars vs. Seopyeonje: The Images of Science and Technology in South Korea
* Date: December 20 (Friday) 17:30
* Venue: N4 Building / STP Seminar Room 1316
* Abstract: This research began with my personal curiosity about why Star Wars movies were not the megahits in South Korea as they were elsewhere. Star Wars movies were extremely popular not only in the West but also in the East. Korean movies, which had traditionally been less popular than imported American Hollywood movies, began to attract more Korean viewers from the early 1990s. Seopyeonje (1993) was the first Korean movie to attract more than one million viewers. Since then, millions of Koreans have gone to cinemas to see Korean movies but not the three Star Wars prequels. My presentation today connects this strange phenomenon with three serious questions: Are science and technology parts of South Korean culture?; What are the popular images of science and technology in South Korea?; How is this phenomenon linked to the “crisis in science and technology” in South Korea which began in the late 1990s?

Best Wishes,
Jin-Yeong Park.