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The 3rd International Conference of Popular Narratives and Media Studies
"Divine Violence and Noble Rage: Gender and Justice in Korean Crime Fiction"
April 10-11, Institute for Korean Studies, Pennsylvania State University (hybrid)
Keynote Speakers
Caroline Reitz, CUNY Graduate Center
Ted Hughes, Columbia University
A Special Lecture on Korean Literature
Young-jun Lee, Director of the Research Institute for Korean Studies
Conference Description
In recent years, Korean crime narratives—crime fiction and crime-themed TV dramas, films, and webtoons—have attracted significant attention from readers, audiences, and scholars both within Korea and internationally. In response to this growing popularity and the increasing scholarly interest in the historical, social, and aesthetic dimensions of Korean crime narratives, the PSU-SKKU Consortium on Korean Popular Narratives and Media is hosting its third international conference, aiming to explore cultural representations of state, institutional, political, and everyday violence against socially vulnerable and marginalized groups in both premodern and modern Korean crime fiction. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s concept of law-annihilating “divine violence,” which confronts the injustice embedded in legal systems, as well as feminist scholarship on gender and justice in modern crime narratives, this conference invites papers that examine the aesthetic and political potential of crime narratives in expressing the precarity of the marginalized and the meaning of justice.
Please submit an abstract (250-words) by November 15, 2025. When submitting your abstract, please also indicate whether you would like to participate online or in person. The selection committee will communicate with scholars in mid-December 2025. Any inquiries may be addressed to Jooyeon Rhee (jxr5820@psu.edu).
Please see the attached CFP for details including submission instructions.
