Cedarbough T Saeji
Biographic Data
| ID | 305190 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Cedarbough T Saeji |
| GIVEN NAMES | Cedarbough T |
| FAMILY NAME | Saeji |
| SIGNATURE | SAEJI C T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Pusan National University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7124-5249 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Dressing Up in the Korean Past: An Analysis of Hanbok Wearing as Play Informed by Popular Culture
Renting hanbok, Korean traditional clothing, is one of the most accessible forms of cultural participation available to both Korean nationals and international visitors. While briefly renting colorful clothing for a photograph is a common tourist activity around the world, hanbok rental has become particularly ubiquitous among young foreign tourists to Korea, many of whom are drawn by their engagement with Korean popular culture. In this paper, I…
Embodied Archives of Authenticity: Age and Performance in the Korean Context
In many theatrical contexts, advanced age is viewed as a liability. In Korea, however, elderly dancers occupy positions of prestige on major stages, even when visibly frail. This article examines how Korea’s intangible cultural heritage policies create structural pressures that keep aging bodies performing long past their technical peak. Drawing on ethnographic observation of dozens of performances and interviews with dancers, I argue that elderl…
Making icons: The rise of the K-pop adjacent industries
The Cambridge Companion to K-Pop
How did Korea with a relatively small-scale music industry come to create a vibrant pop culture scene that would enthrall not only young Asian fans but also global audiences from diverse racial and generational backgrounds? From idol training to fan engagement, from studio recording to mastering choreographic sequences, what are the steps that go into the actual production and promotion of K-pop? And how can we account for K-pop's global presence…
Thinking Through Intertextuality in Korean Pop Music Videos
Korean popular music (K-pop) is intentionally packed with intertextuality, which at the most basic level means that it is constantly making references to other cultural texts.1 Julia Kristeva coine
From Hanok to Hanbok: Traditional iconography in Korean hip hop music videos
Popular culture texts not only entertain us, they shape our understanding of the world and our place in it. This article explores the contradictions and effects of the use of imagined and real Korean settings and traditional iconography in recent videos from Korean hip hop artists with a particularly close reading of the rapper Beenzino’s mid-2016 offering ‘January’, additionally informed by Drunken Tiger’s ‘Mantra’, MC Mong’s ‘Fame’ and Agust D’…
No Frame to Fit It All: An Autoethnography on Teaching Undergraduate Korean Studies, on and off the Peninsula
In the past two decades, Korean Studies has expanded to become an interdisciplinary and increasingly international field of study and research. While new undergraduate Korean Studies programs are opening at universities in the Republic of Korea (ROK) and intensifying multi-lateral knowledge transfers, this process also reveals the lack of a clear identity that continues to haunt the field. In this autoethnographic essay, I examine the possibiliti…
Regulating the Idol: The Life and Death of a South Korean Popular Music Star
For many people outside the South Korean popular music (K-pop) world, the December 2017 death of pop star Kim Jonghyun was a sad, but abstract event. Jonghyun, and dozens more like him, is a type of Korean celebrity known as an "idol." In addition to being popular within Korea, idols are the public face of K-pop, which has become a worldwide phenomenon. This has made idols into incarnations of Korea and Korean culture, and brought the public's po…
The Audience as a Force for Preservation: A Typology of Audiences for the Traditional Performing Arts
The Republic of Korea’s robust system for protection of traditional performing arts has insulated the traditional arts, ensuring that a population of master artists continued to practice their arts even as Korea rapidly modernized. This protection allows people in twenty-first century Seoul to attend performances of raucous mask dance dramas, evocative epic songs, and sedate literati ensembles. However, do they? The audience for Korean traditiona…
Creating Regimes of Value Through Curation at the National Museum of Korea
The National Museum of Korea (NMK) is a site for teaching its visitors about the wonders of the Korean past through exhibition of exemplary art works. Through participant-observation in a Korean art history program organized by the NMK, museum visits, an interview with a senior curator, and an analysis of the NMK’s self-published book 100 Highlights of the National Museum of Korea, I interrogate the museum’s ideology in order to gain a better und…
Juvenile Protection and Sexual Objectification: Analysis of the Performance Frame in Korean Music Television Broadcasts
The wide-spread sexual objectification of women in Korean popular music performance subconsciously teaches men and boys that women and girls are sexual objects that exist to please them. Simultaneously sexual objectification disempowers girls and women by emphasizing superficial beauty. Although many decisions related to Kpop choreography, costumes, or lyrics may be attributed to music management companies, this article analyzes how music televis…
The Bawdy, Brawling, Boisterous World of Korean Mask Dance Dramas: An Essay to Accompany Photographs
The Bawdy, Brawling, Boisterous World of Korean Mask Dance Dramas: An Essay to Accompany Photographs Cedarbough Saeji (bio) Introduction Korean mask dance dramas are captivating and entrancing. Comedy, tragedy, and social commentary meld with energetic dance, distinctive masks, and lively music. These dramas are often colloquially and incorrectly referred to as talchum (“mask dance”) in Korean—in fact, talchum is one of the major variants of mask…
Juvenile Protection and Sexual Objectification: Analysis of the Performance Frame in Korean Music Television Broadcasts
The wide-spread sexual objectification of women in Korean popular music performance subconsciously teaches men and boys that women and girls are sexual objects that exist to please them. Simultaneously sexual objectification disempowers girls and women by emphasizing superficial beauty. Although many decisions related to Kpop choreography, costumes, or lyrics may be attributed to music management companies, this article analyzes how music televis…
Making icons: The rise of the K-pop adjacent industries
Regulating the Idol: The Life and Death of a South Korean Popular Music Star
For many people outside the South Korean popular music (K-pop) world, the December 2017 death of pop star Kim Jonghyun was a sad, but abstract event. Jonghyun, and dozens more like him, is a type of Korean celebrity known as an "idol." In addition to being popular within Korea, idols are the public face of K-pop, which has become a worldwide phenomenon. This has made idols into incarnations of Korea and Korean culture, and brought the public's po…
The Bawdy, Brawling, Boisterous World of Korean Mask Dance Dramas: An Essay to Accompany Photographs
The Bawdy, Brawling, Boisterous World of Korean Mask Dance Dramas: An Essay to Accompany Photographs Cedarbough Saeji (bio) Introduction Korean mask dance dramas are captivating and entrancing. Comedy, tragedy, and social commentary meld with energetic dance, distinctive masks, and lively music. These dramas are often colloquially and incorrectly referred to as talchum (“mask dance”) in Korean—in fact, talchum is one of the major variants of mask…
Juvenile Protection and Sexual Objectification: Analysis of the Performance Frame in Korean Music Television Broadcasts
The wide-spread sexual objectification of women in Korean popular music performance subconsciously teaches men and boys that women and girls are sexual objects that exist to please them. Simultaneously sexual objectification disempowers girls and women by emphasizing superficial beauty. Although many decisions related to Kpop choreography, costumes, or lyrics may be attributed to music management companies, this article analyzes how music televis…
Creating Regimes of Value Through Curation at the National Museum of Korea
The National Museum of Korea (NMK) is a site for teaching its visitors about the wonders of the Korean past through exhibition of exemplary art works. Through participant-observation in a Korean art history program organized by the NMK, museum visits, an interview with a senior curator, and an analysis of the NMK’s self-published book 100 Highlights of the National Museum of Korea, I interrogate the museum’s ideology in order to gain a better und…
The Audience as a Force for Preservation: A Typology of Audiences for the Traditional Performing Arts
The Republic of Korea’s robust system for protection of traditional performing arts has insulated the traditional arts, ensuring that a population of master artists continued to practice their arts even as Korea rapidly modernized. This protection allows people in twenty-first century Seoul to attend performances of raucous mask dance dramas, evocative epic songs, and sedate literati ensembles. However, do they? The audience for Korean traditiona…
No Frame to Fit It All: An Autoethnography on Teaching Undergraduate Korean Studies, on and off the Peninsula
In the past two decades, Korean Studies has expanded to become an interdisciplinary and increasingly international field of study and research. While new undergraduate Korean Studies programs are opening at universities in the Republic of Korea (ROK) and intensifying multi-lateral knowledge transfers, this process also reveals the lack of a clear identity that continues to haunt the field. In this autoethnographic essay, I examine the possibiliti…
Regulating the Idol: The Life and Death of a South Korean Popular Music Star
For many people outside the South Korean popular music (K-pop) world, the December 2017 death of pop star Kim Jonghyun was a sad, but abstract event. Jonghyun, and dozens more like him, is a type of Korean celebrity known as an "idol." In addition to being popular within Korea, idols are the public face of K-pop, which has become a worldwide phenomenon. This has made idols into incarnations of Korea and Korean culture, and brought the public's po…
Thinking Through Intertextuality in Korean Pop Music Videos
Korean popular music (K-pop) is intentionally packed with intertextuality, which at the most basic level means that it is constantly making references to other cultural texts.1 Julia Kristeva coine
From Hanok to Hanbok: Traditional iconography in Korean hip hop music videos
Popular culture texts not only entertain us, they shape our understanding of the world and our place in it. This article explores the contradictions and effects of the use of imagined and real Korean settings and traditional iconography in recent videos from Korean hip hop artists with a particularly close reading of the rapper Beenzino’s mid-2016 offering ‘January’, additionally informed by Drunken Tiger’s ‘Mantra’, MC Mong’s ‘Fame’ and Agust D’…
The Cambridge Companion to K-Pop
How did Korea with a relatively small-scale music industry come to create a vibrant pop culture scene that would enthrall not only young Asian fans but also global audiences from diverse racial and generational backgrounds? From idol training to fan engagement, from studio recording to mastering choreographic sequences, what are the steps that go into the actual production and promotion of K-pop? And how can we account for K-pop's global presence…
Making icons: The rise of the K-pop adjacent industries
Dressing Up in the Korean Past: An Analysis of Hanbok Wearing as Play Informed by Popular Culture
Renting hanbok, Korean traditional clothing, is one of the most accessible forms of cultural participation available to both Korean nationals and international visitors. While briefly renting colorful clothing for a photograph is a common tourist activity around the world, hanbok rental has become particularly ubiquitous among young foreign tourists to Korea, many of whom are drawn by their engagement with Korean popular culture. In this paper, I…
Embodied Archives of Authenticity: Age and Performance in the Korean Context
In many theatrical contexts, advanced age is viewed as a liability. In Korea, however, elderly dancers occupy positions of prestige on major stages, even when visibly frail. This article examines how Korea’s intangible cultural heritage policies create structural pressures that keep aging bodies performing long past their technical peak. Drawing on ethnographic observation of dozens of performances and interviews with dancers, I argue that elderl…
Asian Culture and Media Studies (10 works) · Art (7 works) · Japanese History and Culture (6 works) · Visual arts (5 works) · Business (4 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Advertising (3 works) · Aesthetics (3 works) · Political science (3 works) · Sociology (3 works)