FRIENDS OF KOREA
  • Welcome
    • O'Donnell Distinguished Friend of Korea Award - >
      • Call for Nominations - closed
      • 2024 Honoree - Jon Keeton
      • 2023 Honoree - Donald Mosley
      • O'Donnell Award - previous honorees >
        • Photos of O'Donnell Honorees
    • Remembering Rosalynn Carter
    • Peace Corps - an essay by G. Krzic
    • A Simple Prayer - a musical tribute
    • Remembering in the time of COVID-19
    • Photos and Videos >
      • Photo Gallery: Biwon in Winter
      • Video Gallery
      • Photo Gallery: Arriving in Korea
      • Photo Gallery: TB Program in Korea
      • Photo Gallery: Road Show 1981
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Reflections on Service
    • Statement on diversity and respect
    • Board of Directors
    • 2023 Annual Report >
      • Annual Reports - 2022 & earlier
    • Honorary Membership
    • KOICA/World Friends Korea
    • FOK Blog
    • Past Annual Meetings >
      • 2018 Annual Meeting >
        • 2018 annual meeting - slide show
      • 2017 Annual Meeting >
        • 2017 annual mtg photo gallery
      • 2016 Annual Meeting >
        • 2016 annual mtg photo galllery
      • 2015 Annual Meeting >
        • 2015 Annual Mtg Photo Gallery
  • Resources
    • FoK Webinars - 2023 >
      • FoK Webinars - 2022 >
        • FoK Webinars - 2021 >
          • 2020 Webinars
          • Korean Studies and Peace Corps Volunteers
    • Korea Times column
    • Newsletters >
      • Yobosayo - June 2020
      • Yobosayo - Nov 2019 >
        • Suggestions for further reading
      • Yobosayo - March 2019
      • Yobosayo - May 2018
      • Yobosayo - November 2017
      • Yobosayo - April 2017
    • News about Korea
    • News Sources
    • Korean Cultural Treasures
    • Korean Food >
      • Dining Out in North America: Korea Style
    • Blogs of Interest
  • Events
    • 2024 Annual Meeting video
    • Sept 11 2024 webinar
    • 2023 Annual Meeting - video
    • 2022 Annual Meeting - video
    • 2021 Annual Meeting - video
    • 2020 Annual Meeting - video
    • Revisit Trips >
      • Impressions of the revisits
      • Slide Show - Korea, Then and Now
    • 2018 Reunion - LA >
      • In Remembrance - A Tribute
    • Upcoming Events - Universities
    • Upcoming events: KEI & Korea Society
    • Upcoming events: Korean Cultural Centers - DC, NYC & LA
  • Projects
    • Paths of Grass and Stone
    • Project Bridge - Youth Ambassadors
    • USC Archives - PC Korea
    • The Korean Transformation
    • FOK Publication -- "Through Our Eyes"
    • The Museum Project >
      • Exhibit opening
      • Museum Slide Show
      • Video -- MOU signing & volunteer interviews
      • Seoul in Sept 2016
  • Recent News
  • Support
    • Join us
    • Donate
    • Giving Back
    • Join offline
    • Other Ways to Give (NEW!)
    • Give the gift of membership
    • Zazzle - Peace Corps Korea Store
  • Contact
    • Facebook
    • YouTube
    • Event to share?
    • Update your address
    • News to share?
    • Publications Update Form
[August 2, 2023]  The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories is the first volume of Korean literature among Penguin UK’s 3500-plus World Classics. Which reminds us that although Korean oral literature underlies much of the visual and performative elements that make Korean popular culture (hallyu) so engaging worldwide, Korean recorded literature still struggles for widespread acceptance both within and without Korea. Although a few Korean novels have gained a measure of commercial success in English translation in the new millennium, it is the Korean short story that remains the acme of Korean prose literature in the modern period.   
​

About the Speaker
Bruce Fulton is the Young-Bin Min Chair in Korean Literature and Literary Translation, University of British Columbia. He is the co-translator, with Ju-Chan Fulton, of numerous works of modern Korean fiction; recipient of a 2018 Manhae Grand Prize in Literature; and co-author with Youngmin Kwon of What Is Korean Literature? (2020). He and Ju-Chan Fulton received the first U.S. National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship for a Korean literary work. His most recent book-length translation, with Ju-Chan Fulton, is the novel Togani by Gong Ji-young (2023). The Fultons’ translations of Korean short fiction appear in journals such as The Massachusetts Review, Granta, Ploughshares, and The Southern Review. 
​
​

[May 16, 2023] As South Korea's soft culture power expands through K-pop, K-drama, and K-film, it's serving as a global advertisement for the country's exacting beauty culture and ever-improving innovations to "fix" our physical bodies. Seoul now exports more cosmetic products than smartphones — many of them the techy lasers, wands and light therapy for which the country is known. Meanwhile, patriarchal attitudes domestic Korean women face are unusually backward for such an advanced nation, dropping its fertility rate to the lowest in the world and fanning an ongoing gender war.   

In her debut non-fiction book, Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital, Elise Hu takes the business of appearances seriously — exploring the way performing beauty is built into our political system, our economic system, our labor system, our media (especially social media), and ourselves. It asks, where do we draw the line on physical improvement, when a technological gaze makes it so promising, and possible?

About the Speaker
Elise Hu is a Los-Angeles based journalist, podcast host and entrepreneur who spent nearly a decade at NPR, as a regular voice on flagship shows All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Before NPR, Elise helped found the nonprofit digital startup, The Texas Tribune, in 2009 and spent more than a decade as a television news reporter. She’s an alum of the University of Missouri-Columbia’s Journalism school, and the co-founder of the podcast production company Reasonable Volume. 

Elise Hu founded NPR's Seoul bureau in 2015, covering geopolitics, business and culture in both Koreas and Japan. Her experiences as an Asian-American woman there led her to questions about the enduring power of standardized beauty, how they intersect with capitalist imperatives, and where we go from here, when technology is making our exteriors so vital. 
You can find her online at elisehu.com, on Twitter and Instagram @elisewho, and on TikTok @whoelise.

Friends of Korea 
fostering cultural awareness and friendship between Americans and Koreans

Picture
Picture

​​2021 L Street, NW
Suite 101-403

Washington, DC 20036

[email protected]t
​Copyright © 2013-2025 Friends of Korea

  • Welcome
    • O'Donnell Distinguished Friend of Korea Award - >
      • Call for Nominations - closed
      • 2024 Honoree - Jon Keeton
      • 2023 Honoree - Donald Mosley
      • O'Donnell Award - previous honorees >
        • Photos of O'Donnell Honorees
    • Remembering Rosalynn Carter
    • Peace Corps - an essay by G. Krzic
    • A Simple Prayer - a musical tribute
    • Remembering in the time of COVID-19
    • Photos and Videos >
      • Photo Gallery: Biwon in Winter
      • Video Gallery
      • Photo Gallery: Arriving in Korea
      • Photo Gallery: TB Program in Korea
      • Photo Gallery: Road Show 1981
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Reflections on Service
    • Statement on diversity and respect
    • Board of Directors
    • 2023 Annual Report >
      • Annual Reports - 2022 & earlier
    • Honorary Membership
    • KOICA/World Friends Korea
    • FOK Blog
    • Past Annual Meetings >
      • 2018 Annual Meeting >
        • 2018 annual meeting - slide show
      • 2017 Annual Meeting >
        • 2017 annual mtg photo gallery
      • 2016 Annual Meeting >
        • 2016 annual mtg photo galllery
      • 2015 Annual Meeting >
        • 2015 Annual Mtg Photo Gallery
  • Resources
    • FoK Webinars - 2023 >
      • FoK Webinars - 2022 >
        • FoK Webinars - 2021 >
          • 2020 Webinars
          • Korean Studies and Peace Corps Volunteers
    • Korea Times column
    • Newsletters >
      • Yobosayo - June 2020
      • Yobosayo - Nov 2019 >
        • Suggestions for further reading
      • Yobosayo - March 2019
      • Yobosayo - May 2018
      • Yobosayo - November 2017
      • Yobosayo - April 2017
    • News about Korea
    • News Sources
    • Korean Cultural Treasures
    • Korean Food >
      • Dining Out in North America: Korea Style
    • Blogs of Interest
  • Events
    • 2024 Annual Meeting video
    • Sept 11 2024 webinar
    • 2023 Annual Meeting - video
    • 2022 Annual Meeting - video
    • 2021 Annual Meeting - video
    • 2020 Annual Meeting - video
    • Revisit Trips >
      • Impressions of the revisits
      • Slide Show - Korea, Then and Now
    • 2018 Reunion - LA >
      • In Remembrance - A Tribute
    • Upcoming Events - Universities
    • Upcoming events: KEI & Korea Society
    • Upcoming events: Korean Cultural Centers - DC, NYC & LA
  • Projects
    • Paths of Grass and Stone
    • Project Bridge - Youth Ambassadors
    • USC Archives - PC Korea
    • The Korean Transformation
    • FOK Publication -- "Through Our Eyes"
    • The Museum Project >
      • Exhibit opening
      • Museum Slide Show
      • Video -- MOU signing & volunteer interviews
      • Seoul in Sept 2016
  • Recent News
  • Support
    • Join us
    • Donate
    • Giving Back
    • Join offline
    • Other Ways to Give (NEW!)
    • Give the gift of membership
    • Zazzle - Peace Corps Korea Store
  • Contact
    • Facebook
    • YouTube
    • Event to share?
    • Update your address
    • News to share?
    • Publications Update Form