“Teaching Korea in a Global World” July 2024

“Silla Korea and the Silk Road: Golden Age, Golden Threads” is a 192-slide curriculum guide developed for high school world history and geography courses, published by the Korea Society. The guide shows how contemporary themes of globalization in Asia are not new, as indeed, trade in goods and cultural practices along the Silk Road had a profound effect on Korean states, and in turn helped to spread Korean culture to other parts of Asia. The guide is divided into five parts:
   1. Was Silla (Korea) Part of the Silk Road? [A nice overview of Silk Road History]
   2. Did the Silk Road Create Silla’s Golden Age?  [A Detailed Account of Global Influences on the Korean Peninsula]
   3. Sillan Individuals and the Silk Road [Fantastic individual biographies of notable figures in Silla history] 
   4. Concluding Exercise: Does International Trade Help or Hurt Culture?
   5. Advanced Readings.

This lesson plan created by Brian Burback details how to get high schools to research on and evaluate South Korea’s democratization process. The activities included will allow students to learn about the various South Korean presidents that were part of the country’s democratization process and think critically about during which presidency Korea truly transitioned to a democracy. Teachers can stick to this lesson plan or expand on this by incorporating some of the materials introduced in the lecture (e.g. definition of democracy, benefits of democracy, introducing the Polity V score). 

“What is Korean popular music (K-pop) and how is it different from American popular music? How does it continue to attract new audiences despite linguistic barriers? In North America many people have only recently heard about K-pop, the genre-fluid industry that is taking the world by storm. As top stars have appeared on all the major American late night interview programs, and caused a sensation internationally K-pop has emerged as a cultural force far from its homeland. In this presentation I will sketch the history of this industry, from entertaining American troops in the 1950s and 1960s, through protest music and to the emergence of K-pop. I will outline how the Korean government changed its policy vis-à-vis the industry until it became part of policy level discussions for soft power and nation branding. Then through an examination of the adroit use of the internet to reach disparate audiences we will arrive at how the industry managed to frame K-pop as something new and different in a way that was perfectly positioned for breaking through to North American youth. Finally, I will explain how through strategically embracing cultural differences, some rooted in Korean traditions, K-pop has seen success not by becoming more Western, but by being unmistakably Korean.”

From the book Hallyu! The Korean Wave (London: Victoria and Albert Museum), this introductory essay provides a concise overview of the emergence of the Korean Wave (Hallyu) in relation to pivotal points in Korean history.

This high school lesson from the World History Digital Education Foundation uses K-pop as a case study to help students understand globalization and cultural exchange. Students analyze how Korean popular music has been shaped by global influences and how it, in turn, influences cultures worldwide through media, economics, and politics.