Malmuni t’ŭin yŏnghwa: The Body-Speech Nexus in Millennial South Korean Cinema

Abstract

This colloquium lecture examines the rise of proficient speech practice as a key expressive feature in South Korean cinema since the 2000s. While existing scholarship often attributes the industry’s growth to institutional transformations and auteurism, this paper utilizes Ordinary Language Philosophy to explore the "communicative depth" of language use in the new millennium. Defined as malmuni t’ŭin yŏnghwa—or "cinema that bursts forth with lively speech"—this era marks a somatic-linguistic shift away from the "austere" allegories of the Korean New Wave. By treating everyday language acts seriously, these films foster a new sense of directness, realism, and thematic sophistication that enhances their popularity and accessibility. The lecture will focus on Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder (2003) to illustrate how the success or failure of speech acts illuminates the body-speech nexus, offering a fresh perspective on the humanistic appeal of contemporary Korean cinema.

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Biography: Jinsoo An is an associate professor in Korean Studies at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at UC Berkeley.  He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the Dept. of Film and Television at UCLA with his dissertation on post-war Korean cinema and national identity.  He has written on topics related to Korean cinema, including representation of Christianity, nationalism, historical drama, popular justice, legal formalism, and cult film aesthetics. His book “Parameters of Disavowal” explores the representation of the colonial past as knowledge production and cultural imagining in South Korean cinema.  He is currently researching speech acts in South Korean cinema and Kim Ki-young’s film aesthetics.

Our discussant will be Eunkyo Kang, a Ph.D. student in Korean Literature and Culture at Stanford University’s Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. She holds a Master of Arts in Women’s Studies from Ewha Womans University in Seoul. Her current research examines the works of Korean science fiction writer DJUNA, while her broader interest lies in employing decolonial feminist approaches to analyze how “K-” discourses circulate transnationally in a gendered and sexualized way.

As a reminder, all first year literature students must register for EALC202: Proseminar in East Asian Humanities II. You must attend at least two-thirds of the EAHW events this quarter to receive credit. All other students who plan to attend the workshop series for credit should enroll in EALC212: East Asian Humanities Workshop II as a one-unit course. Please see section 6.5 of the EALC Graduate Student Handbook for more details.

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Sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, the East Asian Humanities Workshop aims at promoting intra- and inter-departmental communication among faculty, graduate students, and visiting scholars who share research and teaching interests in East Asia in the Stanford community. In particular, it is intended to foster stronger ties between EALC faculty and graduate students across the China-Japan-Korea programs as well as greater cross-disciplinary exchange among East Asian Studies scholars across the humanities and social science disciplines, including literature, linguistics, history, art history, religion, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and political science. It is also intended to enhance graduate student professionalization. The workshop meets, on average, twice a month during the academic year and engages in a variety of activities determined by its participants.

If you have suggestions you would like to make for future workshop activities, please feel free to email your ideas to our 2025-26 faculty supervisor, Ariel Stilerman (stilerman [at] stanford.edu (stilerman[at]stanford[dot]edu)), and our graduate student coordinators, Rosaley Gai (rgai [at] stanford.edu (rgai[at]stanford[dot]edu)) and Michael Baiamonte (bwxuan38 [at] stanford.edu (bwxuan38[at]stanford[dot]edu)). For those interested, please request to join our mailing list for future event announcements: Mailing List.