Submitted the last document for my tenure & promotion review... now I just have to wait till next May... 🫠
Areum Jeong 정아름
@areum.bsky.social
👩🏻🏫 Korean film, pop culture, theatre & performance @arizonastateuni.bsky.social 📚 Beyond the Sewol (U of Hawaii Press, Sept 2025) & K-Pop Fandom (@uofmpress.bsky.social, Feb 2026) 📧 areumjeong@gmail.com
More broadly, I’m frustrated by how almost every discussion surrounding BTS is framed through an overwhelmingly American-centric lens. Ironically, even the discourse of decentering America remains profoundly American-centric. I don’t think that’s ultimately good for BTS, either.
Which is why, contrary to what many people are suggesting, BTS’s Grammy boycott is nothing like Bong Joon-ho saying, “The Oscars are very local.” Bong relativized the Oscars. BTS spent years universalizing and absolutizing the Grammys—and, in many ways, they still do.
Its alignment with American liberal multiculturalism emerged as a byproduct of climbing to the top of that competitive hierarchy, not as an ideological commitment. Whatever cultural impact this boycott may ultimately have, I think this one is, in essence, closer to sour grapes.
In that sense, interpreting BTS/HYBE’s boycott through the same liberal cultural framework as other Grammy boycott cases is a mistake. K-pop has always operated according to the logic of neoliberal competition: winning is always the point.
when you consider how desperately they’ve pursued the Grammys for years especially in their attempt to exempt the military services. They’ve been strategically emphasized or downplayed the “K” in K-pop whenever it suited the goal of becoming Grammy-worthy for all these years.
BTS’s Grammy boycott is now being celebrated as a stand against the Grammys’ white-centric bias. And yes, creating an “Asian Pop” category is obviously a racializing move. But it’s difficult to read HYBE and BTS’s boycott simply as a decision made for the good of the industry or the scene
I finally have a very, very rough draft (so lots more writing ahead) of Chapters 1-4 of my next book manuscript, but I will put it away for a week so, then return to it with fresh eyes. Although it feels very skeletal now, I am very excited to develop it further. 👩🏻💻
Cat Typing on Laptop
ALT: Cat Typing on Laptop
static.klipy.com
I was in a working group this summer on AI resistant assignments. I focused on low stakes course work that could then be scaffolded into my formal assignments. I teach literature, so things like social annotations, concept mapping, and commonplacing academictech.uchicago.edu/2024/06/24/u...
Use Commonplacing to Help Students Better Understand Difficult Texts: Habits of Mind Series, Part One | Academic Technology Solutions
academictech.uchicago.edu
For the @nytimes.com, the biggest crises in higher ed are grade inflation at Ivy/Ivy-adjacent institutions & 'wokeness,' not the defunding of public higher ed, attacks on academic freedom which disproportionately impact public institutions, crumbling campus infrastructure, exploding student debt
몇 달 치 짐 다 정리하고 구석구석 청소하고 장 보고 나니 넘나 피곤하지만 집에 돌아온 거 실감남🌵 달력 보니 정확히 한 달 후에 엘에이 간다 남은 주말만 누워서 쉬고 내일부터 일 열시미 하기 🙌🏻
Excited that there are 4 performances on Jeju at Festival d'Avignon this year. Arthur Laffargue of Liberation, who read my Theatre Research International article, invited me to share my thoughts on Creative VaQi's Story of Island and the Jeju 4.3 Massacre. www.liberation.fr/culture/scen...
Festival d’Avignon 2026 : la mémoire du massacre de Jeju en Corée reconstruite pièce par pièce
Longtemps taboue et occultée par la dictature, l’histoire des tueries de 1947-1954 sur l’île sud-coréenne réémerge par la création. Trois pièces y sont consacrées au Festival, dont le coréen est la l...
liberation.fr
아 킹받게 공항에 뭐 저런 걸 만들어놨어 😂🤣 근데 굿즈와 책이 깔끔하게 정리된 내 집으로 돌아갈 생각을 하니 좋음 🌵🌴
🚨 Cool CPF alert! 🚨 MAKING AND ARCHIVING FEMINIST ZINES OTHERWISE A Symposium on Global Feminist Methods & Pedagogies Virtual event on 22-23 October 2026 knowledgesteez.com/call-for-pap...
Many thanks to Li Wei who wrote a generous review of my K-Pop Fandom book in The Journal of Popular Culture! 🫶🏻 doi.org/10.1111/jpcu...
K‐Pop Fandom: Performing Deokhu From the 1990s to Today. By Areum Jeong, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2026. 176 pp. $24.95 (paperback). ISBN: 978‐0‐47‐205789‐4
Click on the article title to read more.
doi.org
Fan Studies Network@fanstudies.bsky.social · last mo.New book review in The Journal of Popular Culture ⬇️⬇️⬇️ K-Pop Fandom: Performing Deokhu From the 1990s to Today. By Areum Jeong, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2026. 176 pp. $24.95 (paperback). Li Wei #FanStudies onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
New book review in The Journal of Popular Culture ⬇️⬇️⬇️ K-Pop Fandom: Performing Deokhu From the 1990s to Today. By Areum Jeong, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2026. 176 pp. $24.95 (paperback). Li Wei #FanStudies onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
K‐Pop Fandom: Performing Deokhu From the 1990s to Today. By Areum Jeong, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2026. 176 pp. $24.95 (paperback). ISBN: 978‐0‐47‐205789‐4
Click on the article title to read more.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
어제 부천에서 보고 왔는데, 장면 장면 계속 떠오르고 곱씹는 중 🥹 간만에 봤는데 또 보고 싶은 영화가 생김 🎬 나중에 개봉하면 꼭 보러가세요!🎖️
In the first half of 2026, I reviewed three book manuscripts, two grant proposals, and two journal articles. I was asked to review more but had to decline to protect my health and time. I wonder, am I doing enough to serve our community? And are other folks pulling their weight as well?
Paper Performance by Ju Yon Kim brings together studies of paperwork and performance to demonstrate their continued, intertwined impact on Asian American history and culture. https://ow.ly/QK6G50Zit9G
오랜만에 읽을거리 📚 광장 비판: 민주주의에 대해 우리가 말하지 않는 것 / 조형근, 천정환, 연혜원, 안희제, 홍명교, 정고은 펑펑: 나를 울리고 너를 배반하며 이룩되는 케이팝 이야기 / 복길 The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir / Karen Cheung
Also managed to squeeze in a few hours at the Art Institute of Chicago
Got a tour of the Obama Presidential Museum on a beautiful day ☀️ Many thanks to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for inviting me! 🙏🏻
