Don't Obey #052 Korean Photography, Fashion, and Sexuality

Apr 3, 2023

02:53:46

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Episode notes

Dr. Michael W. Hurt is a photographer and professor living, shooting, and researching in Seoul. He received his doctorate from UC Berkeley’s Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies. He also started Korea’s first street fashion blog in 2006 and published the first English language book about Korean Fashion in 2009. He researches youth, street fashion, and digital subcultures in Seoul while lecturing on Cultural Theory and Art History. His present research focuses on using the camera to access and document emergent digital subcultures in Korea, including the political economy of the “pay model” on Korean Instagram, Seoul’s drag underground, and the youth-centric LGBTQ movement in Korea.

Our conversation focused on 90s fashion and culture, street photography, women as subjects/objects of fashion, heroin chic and 퇴폐미, Korean feminism, cultural appropriation, 부캐 vs 본캐, and Korean Studies as an academic field.

Michael's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seoulstreetstudios/

Michael's magazine: https://medium.com/seoulacious-magazine

9 minute: https://www.instagram.com/9minuite/

Discussion Outline

0:00 Early Days: Jeju in the 1990s

15:00 90s vibes and street culture

26:35 Street photography

39:00 Women as the subject and object of fashion

52:20 Photo editing vs reality: ethnography

59:24 Heroin chic and 퇴폐미

1:12:00 School girl concepts and smoking

1:22:40 Korean models and prices