Generation X and the Birth of "K": Social Change and the Emergence of a New Cultural Generation In 1990s Korea

This session aims to situate Generation X as the historical and cultural origin point of Korea's "K" cultural formation, against the background of the broader social transformations of 1990s Korea. We invite papers on South Korea's "Generation X," a cohort born out of the twin watersheds of democratization and the Olympic Games of late-1980s South Korea. Olympic preparation reshaped Seoul into a city of new, decentralized downtowns, while sustained economic growth, set against this democratized and reorganized urban backdrop, fueled a marked increase in everyday consumption of fashion, film, and music. This expanded consumption gave ordinary Koreans routine access to Western popular culture, which they absorbed and reinterpreted on their own terms. The same conditions naturally enlarged the ranks of cultural producers, and democratization allowed these creators to work with a freedom previously unavailable under authoritarian rule. Later, the internet and increasingly personalized digital media let this generation forge new democratic dynamics of participation and expression. Out of this conjuncture, Generation X emerged as the founding generation of contemporary Korea's "K-culture."
We invite submissions addressing the following dimensions:
1. Urban space: How did Olympic-era urban restructuring and Seoul's new downtowns (Apgujeong, Hongdae, Sinchon, Gangnam) shape this generation's everyday consumption practices and the formation of new place-identities?
2. Popular culture: How did rising consumption and everyday reinterpretation of Western fashion, film, and music shape a distinctly Korean generational sensibility?
3. Media and democracy: How did the internet and increasingly personalized digital media reshape this generation's modes of civic participation and democratic self-expression?