SEUNG SOO KIM
Seung Soo Kim is a lecturer in cultural studies at the BA program in Language and Culture (BALAC) at the Faculty of Arts in Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. Kim received his Ph. D. in Media Studies in 2016 from the College of Media, Communication, and Information at the University of Colorado Boulder. His dissertation 'Imagining Religion and Modernity in Post-Colonial Korea: Neo-Liberal Brand Culture and Digital Space' explores how the formation, mediation, and circulation of contemporary imaginaries about Korean Protestantism and Buddhism are closely entangled with new digital media technology, neo-liberal brand culture, colonial history, and the modern imaginary of the universal, linear, and progressive History. His research interests include religion and media, mediation, materiality, and multiple modernities. His publications include ‘‘Media’’
(co-authored with Stewart Hoover), in Handbook of Religion and Society (Springer, 2016) and “Authenticity, Brand Culture, and Templestay in the Digital Era: The Ambivalence and In-Betweenness of Korean Buddhism” (Journal of Korean Religions, October 2017).
Supervisors: Dr. Stewart Hoover
(co-authored with Stewart Hoover), in Handbook of Religion and Society (Springer, 2016) and “Authenticity, Brand Culture, and Templestay in the Digital Era: The Ambivalence and In-Betweenness of Korean Buddhism” (Journal of Korean Religions, October 2017).
Supervisors: Dr. Stewart Hoover
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Then, I build up a theoretical framework to understand the working of social imaginaries in contemporary social worlds which are inevitably imagined, constantly (re)mediated, and thus multiply decontextualized and re-contextualized. The concepts of imaginary/imagination and social imaginaries are carefully explored as a form of social understandings through which people make sense of their existence, the world and social order in which they live. And it is argued that the concepts of circulation and mediation capture the image of process and multidirectionality characterizing the formation of contemporary social worlds that are held by particular social imaginaries. Lastly, it is explored how social imaginaries come to be embodied into social bodies and what implications of the embodiment of social imaginaries have in terms of the branding of Templestay and the media representation of Korean Protestantism in the 2012 Lady Gaga controversy and the 2015 knife attack on the U. S. ambassador
Based on the multi-perspectival approach, the dissertation finds that Korean Protestantism is imagined as the irrational, inferior, and dangerous Other threatening the complete modernization and civilization of Korea, contrary to its being imagined as the symbol of Western modernity and civilization in the early modern Korea. Meanwhile, Korean Buddhism is ambivalently imagined and branded not only as a long-preserved spirituality and tradition but as a cutting-edge antidote to neo-liberal individuals’ selves corrupted and exhausted by late-modern technology and lifestyle, contrary to its being imagined as the symbol of the uncivilized in the early modern Korea. In the imaginaries and narratives about Korean Buddhism and Protestantism, the dissertation detects both Protestant semiotic imaginary dichotomizing spirit and matter, content and form, and the pure(unmixed) and the corrupted(mixed) and modern social imaginary of the linear and universal world history.
The dissertation contributes to the recent efforts to theorize digital media as in-between social space where people make affective and informative relationships with others and thus form loosely-structured, temporal communities sharing symbols, knowledge and sentiments and memories. The case studies explore how digital space comes to be a site where people collectively imagine and understand not only the two religions but Korean-ness, modernity and world history by circulating and sharing visual images, symbols and narratives. Second, it offers an empirical study demonstrating how digital media affords the branding of religion in a post-colonial social world intersecting with neo-liberalism. It is the imaginary and locale of ‘tradition’ in which post-colonial Korea and its alleged indigenous Buddhism find a communal source to brand themselves attractive and sellable to cosmopolitan consumers all over the world who search for authentic, exotic and spiritual experience to escape from late-modern technology and lifestyle. Third, it enriches the scholarly discussion about the significance of imagination, mediation, and circulation in the (multiple) formations of post-colonial modernity. It particularly illuminates how social imaginaries about ‘the modern’ in South Korea are being shaped in the encounters with, and the mediations and circulations of, images, symbols, and ideas associated with Korean Buddhism and Protestantism. That is, the dissertation not only reveals new locations and public presences of religion in the modern social imaginaries circulated in contemporary Korea but demonstrates how social imaginaries about “the modern” and those about religion are co-constituted in the post-colonial context of South Korea. Lastly, problematizing Eurocentrism underlying the social imaginaries circulated, it not only complicates what ‘the modern’ is, but demonstrates how ‘the modern’ comes to acquire hegemony at the levels of the imaginary, bodily sensation, sentiment, and habitus in contemporary Korea.
Then, I build up a theoretical framework to understand the working of social imaginaries in contemporary social worlds which are inevitably imagined, constantly (re)mediated, and thus multiply decontextualized and re-contextualized. The concepts of imaginary/imagination and social imaginaries are carefully explored as a form of social understandings through which people make sense of their existence, the world and social order in which they live. And it is argued that the concepts of circulation and mediation capture the image of process and multidirectionality characterizing the formation of contemporary social worlds that are held by particular social imaginaries. Lastly, it is explored how social imaginaries come to be embodied into social bodies and what implications of the embodiment of social imaginaries have in terms of the branding of Templestay and the media representation of Korean Protestantism in the 2012 Lady Gaga controversy and the 2015 knife attack on the U. S. ambassador
Based on the multi-perspectival approach, the dissertation finds that Korean Protestantism is imagined as the irrational, inferior, and dangerous Other threatening the complete modernization and civilization of Korea, contrary to its being imagined as the symbol of Western modernity and civilization in the early modern Korea. Meanwhile, Korean Buddhism is ambivalently imagined and branded not only as a long-preserved spirituality and tradition but as a cutting-edge antidote to neo-liberal individuals’ selves corrupted and exhausted by late-modern technology and lifestyle, contrary to its being imagined as the symbol of the uncivilized in the early modern Korea. In the imaginaries and narratives about Korean Buddhism and Protestantism, the dissertation detects both Protestant semiotic imaginary dichotomizing spirit and matter, content and form, and the pure(unmixed) and the corrupted(mixed) and modern social imaginary of the linear and universal world history.
The dissertation contributes to the recent efforts to theorize digital media as in-between social space where people make affective and informative relationships with others and thus form loosely-structured, temporal communities sharing symbols, knowledge and sentiments and memories. The case studies explore how digital space comes to be a site where people collectively imagine and understand not only the two religions but Korean-ness, modernity and world history by circulating and sharing visual images, symbols and narratives. Second, it offers an empirical study demonstrating how digital media affords the branding of religion in a post-colonial social world intersecting with neo-liberalism. It is the imaginary and locale of ‘tradition’ in which post-colonial Korea and its alleged indigenous Buddhism find a communal source to brand themselves attractive and sellable to cosmopolitan consumers all over the world who search for authentic, exotic and spiritual experience to escape from late-modern technology and lifestyle. Third, it enriches the scholarly discussion about the significance of imagination, mediation, and circulation in the (multiple) formations of post-colonial modernity. It particularly illuminates how social imaginaries about ‘the modern’ in South Korea are being shaped in the encounters with, and the mediations and circulations of, images, symbols, and ideas associated with Korean Buddhism and Protestantism. That is, the dissertation not only reveals new locations and public presences of religion in the modern social imaginaries circulated in contemporary Korea but demonstrates how social imaginaries about “the modern” and those about religion are co-constituted in the post-colonial context of South Korea. Lastly, problematizing Eurocentrism underlying the social imaginaries circulated, it not only complicates what ‘the modern’ is, but demonstrates how ‘the modern’ comes to acquire hegemony at the levels of the imaginary, bodily sensation, sentiment, and habitus in contemporary Korea.