On May 18, 2013, Josai hosted the Japan-Korea Symposium “The ‘Korean Wave’ and ‘Japanese Wave’ amid Globalization” at Tokyo Kioicho Campus basement auditorium. The event was sponsored by Josai International University’s Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies and the Center for Korean Cultural Studies, and cosponsored by JIU’s Faculty for International Humanities.
    With ten years having passed since the “Winter Sonata” boom, this conference exchanged opinions with both Japanese and Korean scholars that interrogate the state of contemporary Korean and Japanese culture by asking questions such as: What was the effect of the Korean Wave on Japan and Korea? What is the role of TV dramas and other visual media in the global age? How are women represented in Japanese and Korean dramas?

Chancellor Noriko Mizuta provided opening remarks at the symposium by saying, “At present, Korean popular culture demonstrates a tremendous global influence that transcends both gender and generational differences. That both Japanese and Korean scholars have assembled here today to discuss Japanese and Korean popular culture is very significant indeed.”
    Next InYoung Nam, Director of Dongseo University’s KwonTaek IM Film Center delivered a keynote lecture entitled “A Glimpse in the Female Mirror: The Present State of Korean Feminist Film.” Prof. Nam contends that while cinema is thought of as “a mirror that reflects the self,” feminist theory contends that this “self” is in fact a construction that has been universalized through the phallocentric male discourse, thereby rendering female identity abject by confining it to the back side of the mirror. Using these concepts as a critical foundation, Prof. Nam’s presentation aims to extricate female identity from its confines within the mirror through the analysis of modern feminist cinema.
    The symposium continued with panel presentations from Associate Professor JiYoung Jung of Ewha Womans University on “Images of Joseon Dynasty Women and Gender Hierarchy in Modern Korean Society,” Professor Minato Kawamura of Hosei University on “The Origin and Future of the Korean Wave,” Professor Takeshi Usami of Chuo University on “Theories of the Japanese and Korean TV Drama,” and Professor EunKyung Yang of Chungnam National University on “Asian Cultural Commonality in the Korean and Japanese Waves,” with Visiting Professor Yasuko Wachi of JIU serving as discussant.

The auditorium was packed to capacity with nearly 200 participants both affiliated and unaffiliated with Josai, including fans of Korean popular culture, students studying the Korean language, and scholars interested in Korea and gender studies. Despite the continued turbulence of political relations between Japan and Korea, this symposium confirmed the cooperation that, at the level of popular culture, has taken place between the two countries since 1990 insuring that the popularity of Korean culture is not a mere “boom” and illuminating the potential for a new cultural community in East Asia. It was thus that the symposium ended with a rousing standing ovation.
    Following the symposium, we were joined by Sim DongSup, director of the Korean Cultural Center, Korean Embassy as a sponsor of this symposium, Shinkun Haku, national Diet member, Melissa McCormick, Harvard Professor of Japanese Art History and others for the reception where participants engaged in lively conversation.