[Book Talk] Riding the Korean Wave in China: The Reception and Remaking of Popular Korean Screen Culture

Source: https://radii.co/article/jay-park-shanghai

Prof. Tian Li, Korea University

Thursday, January 29, 2026
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

Bunche Hall, Rm 10383

Chinese affinity for and engagement with Korean screen media since the end of the Cold War, offers a fascinating window onto the ways in which screen culture shapes and is reshaped by the people who produce and consume it. This dynamic illustrates how screen culture transcends borders, overcoming language and ideological divides, while often serving to advance national interests alongside transnational desires. This project explored the impact of the rise of Korean screen culture from the vantage point of the receiving countries, and none as yet from the land of its first and largest audience - the People's Republic of China. Mainland China was, in fact, the first stop on the path of the Korean Wave, and the term Hallyu was first coined in the Chinese context. This project investigates the Korean Wave as it has played out in China, the world's biggest audience, using the concept of "screen capitalism" as a framework for understanding the contemporary world of screens, and the audiovisual relations that form and function within it. By demonstrating how screen capitalism is cultivated within both capitalist and postsocialist societies, Professor Li contend that this audiovisual mechanism, insofar as it is fluidly transplantable, ideologically permeable, and transnationally gendered, circulates a shifting cultural paradigm both on and off screen.   

Dr. Tian (Esther) Li is an Assistant Professor of Media and Communication at Korea University. She taught classes at Yale University as Postdoctoral Associate and at Harvard University as Postdoctoral Fellow. She also lectured at Stanford University taught Asian screen cultures. Her academic works has appeared in various journals including positions: asia critique, Telos, The Journal of Asian Studies, China Perspectives, and Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies. 

This event is co-sponsored with the Center for Chinese Studies.

This is part of the "Koreans in the World" project hosted by UCLA's Center for Korean Studies. This event is supported by the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS Award Number: AKS-2023-SRI-2200001) as part of its Strategic Research Institute Program for Korean Studies. 

Sponsor(s): Center for Korean Studies, Academy of Korean Studies