Seoul Colloquium in Korean Studies

(Organized by the Seoul Center of the ÉFEO and RAS Korea)

“Flower of capitalism”: Dreams and Realities of South Korean Advertising

SPEAKER: Olga Fedorenko

The September 2023 session of the “Seoul Colloquium in Korean Studies” will be held as an in-person event on Thursday September 7 in the Grand Conference Room (Room number 310), of the Asiatic Research Institute, Korea University, beginning at 6:00 pm

All who wish to participate must register in advance by sending an email to efeoseoul@hotmail.com

DATE: Thursday. September 7, 2023. 6:00PM
VENUE:  Grand Conference Room (#310), the Asiatic Research Institute, Korea University

[Take Exit 1 from Korea University subway station, turn right onto the footpath leading up onto the campus. Walk straight up the road past LG Posco Hall, the Business School and Main Library (all on the right hand side). The Asiatic Research Institute is the building next after the Library (Building 39 on the Campus Map http://oia.korea.ac.kr/listener.do?layout=itd_4_1 )

After 6 pm the front door of the Institute may be locked. If the door is locked, phone to the EFEO Seoul Center (02-921-4526) so that we can let you into the building.

SUMMARY:

In South Korea, the cultural logic of advertising (encapsulated by the cliché “advertising, the flower of capitalism”) historically downplayed its marketing purposes and privileged its potential for promoting virtue and enabling diverse mass media, even if those public-service aspirations sometimes collided with the business interests of advertisers. Flower of Capitalism: South Korean Advertising at a Crossroads (University of Hawaii Press, 2022) ethnographically examines the clash of advertising’s old obligations and new freedoms that ensued when the historical vision of advertising came under attack with neoliberalization, particularly after 2008, when freedom to advertise became constitutionally protected. The talk will introduce the book and present arguments from a chapter that ethnographically explores the lifeworlds of South Korean advertising practitioners based on participant observation at a Seoul advertising agency.

BIO:

Olga Fedorenko is Associate Professor at the Anthropology Department of Seoul National University. She received her Ph.D. from the East Asian Studies Department at the University of Toronto and taught at New York University before joining SNU. A scholar of Korean Studies and anthropology of media, Dr. Fedorenko has published on South Korean advertising, celebrity culture, and the sharing economy.

We hope that as many as possible of you can join us for this event.

Élisabeth Chabanol, Head of the Seoul Center, French School of Asian Studies/École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), and

Brother Anthony, President Emeritus, Royal Asiatic Society Korea