This book is a collection of contributions by researchers working in various fields of humanities and cultural studies with a focus on the most important contemporary terms needed to understand the Korean Wave (Hallyu) and Korean studies. In recent decades, Hallyu has evolved far beyond the export of Korean popular culture or the commercial success of individual media products. It has become a complex, multilayered cultural formation—one that no longer lends itself to simple explanations. As such, Hallyu persistently raises new questions, inviting scholars to rethink existing frameworks and stimulating fresh intellectual engagements around the world. Twenty-nine researchers across a diverse range of subject areas in the Humanities and Social Sciences have contributed their expertise. Their academic work, conducted across Korea, the United States, Italy, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and beyond, lends this volume its breadth and depth. The entries assembled here encompass both the core concepts that currently anchor Hallyu scholarship and the emerging keywords that offer promising avenues for future research.

This work was supported by the Fostering a New Wave of K-Academics Program of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the Korean Studies Promotion Service (KSPS) at the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2021-KDA-1250004).

Soongbeum Ahn is Associate Dean of the College of Humanities and Professor of Korean Language and Literature at Kyung Hee University, South Korea. As Director of the K-Culture and Story Contents Research Institute, he leads a wide range of scholarly initiatives. He serves as the project director of Fostering a New Wave of K-Academics, a national program of the Academy of Korean Studies, and his research focuses on the contemporary reception of the Korean Wave from a comparative cultural studies perspective and on media-based narratology.