Irina Lyan

Open Call to Candidates Korean Teacher, Language Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University Language Center invites applications for the position of Korean Teacher. The Language Center, established in 2017, has aligned the objectives, methodologies and assessment of modern-language acquisition with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR 2001; 2020) for eight modern languages and is currently redesigning the Korean program for the 2024-25 academic year. The LC primarily serves undergraduate and graduate degree programs in the Faculty of Humanities and has extended its activities to serve other populations as well.
All Korean classes taught under the auspices of the LC will be conducted exclusively in Korean. Curriculum, teaching resources and classroom methodology will all be geared towards maximizing both spoken and written communication, immersing in the language, building skill and confidence, and developing inter-cultural awareness and tolerance. Learner autonomy is key to our approach, i.e. the teacher is viewed primarily as a facilitator to language acquisition.

Requirements

·        Native speaker of Korean or proven C1 competence

·        Master's degree (may be in the process of completion when applying)

·        Preference will be given to candidates with a degree in a related field of study and/or CEFR-aligned teacher training certification

·        Open-minded team player; ability to co-teach with colleagues is a must.

·        Motivation and mindset to design and implement the new Korean language program

·        Desire to further professionalize in state-of-the-art language teaching and curriculum development, in-house and in international settings

·        Passion for teaching and inter-cultural communication

·        Technologically savvy and able to adapt to extensive use of digital platforms

The position is being offered on a trial-period basis, with the potential for a tenure-track Language Teacher position (MA required for tenure eligibility). Employment begins October 2024; design of the new curriculum begins upon selection and will be facilitated by in-house trainers. Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. Applicants are asked to send a CV and cover letter (in English or in Hebrew) to the Director of the Language Center, Chaya Fischer: chaya.fischer@mail.huji.ac.il


Qualified candidates will be invited to interview, and if found suitable, will be asked to teach a mock Korean beginner lesson to the hiring committee.

Chang Kyung-Sup’s The Logic of Compressed Modernity opens with the book cover seemingly coming alive, right from the first science fiction attempts from the beginning of the twentieth century to describe the city and people of the future. At once anonymous but familiar, phantasmagorical but realistic, dark but illuminated by thousands of electric lights, and lonely but densely populated, such a dystopian portrayal of a (post)modern metropolis and a (half)man peeking out of the soon-to-be-museum slums can exist anywhere–a non-place.

The academic literature has typically analyzed fandom within the
context of culture and media studies, referring to it as an extreme
form of leisure activity. Using such metaphors as “religion,” “nation,”
and “market,” studies in the field often frame fans as fanatical,
over-dedicated, and obsessed consumers who can go as far as
making imagined or actual pilgrimages to their source of fandom,
be it a country, a site, or a concert in the most distant place. For instance,
as synonyms of the word, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary
suggests quite unflattering comparisons to addict, aficionado, buff,
bug, devotee, enthusiast, fanatic, fancier, fiend, fool, freak, habitué,
head, hound, junkie, lover, maniac, maven, nut, and more.

While these frameworks help us to understand the stigmatization process of fans and their power to challenge social order, they
also demonstrate how little diversity we have within the work/
leisure binary—we either work or not. In this essay, I propose to
conceptualize fans as entrepreneurial actors whose actions might
enlarge and diversify the social boundaries of the work/leisure binary,
and even build alternative institutions to the dominant institution
of work (in English with Korean translation).

In the current article, I examine the continuing fascination with the outstanding success of Korean popular culture beyond national and regional borders, known as the Korean Wave or Hallyu, through the mediatized emotions of shock and surprise. More specifically, by studying emotions, I employ Erving Goffman's seminal work on stigma and its management to understand the ambivalent reception of this so-called global success. For this purpose, I follow the media coverage of Korean popular culture by one of the mainstream media stages, the New York Times, measuring the emotional tone of its 112 items between 2002 and 2021. By identifying and analyzing three major categories-(1) enchantment with a cultural "miracle"; (2) fascination with fans; and (3) disenchantment because of global success but local failure-I question the celebration of non-Western alternative cultural globalization from the margins as, by definition, an ambivalent and partial project.

In this paper we take a postcolonial management approach to exploring the lingering significance of postcolonial imagery in shaping legal disputes between host country and foreign multinational corporations (MNCs). We apply a critical discourse analysis to the Korea vs. Orbotech industrial espionage lawsuit, in which the Korean government accused a foreign MNC of leaking its “national core technology.” Through this analysis we demonstrate how IE discourse was used to fight Korea’s negative reputation as a technological imitator, associate Korea with global technological leaders, and disassociate itself from other “imitators.” In response, Orbotech’s IE discourse has aimed to reproduce Korea’s imitator stigma. Our findings highlight the continual role of the imagined North/South, West/rest symbolic boundaries in constructing global business hierarchies even when the marginalized party—Korea—has already moved to the elite economies club. While international management studies rarely address IE beyond its technical meaning, we underline the embeddedness of IE-as-a-discourse in maintaining and disrupting the geopolitical business landscape.

This paper aims to problematize cross-cultural management (CCM) discourse that naturalizes and depoliticizes similarities as a power-neutral or even power-neutralizing mechanism for creating a positive sense of familiarity, closeness, trust, and intimacy between partners. Employing a postcolonial perspective, the paper deals with the ambiguity and partiality embedded in similarity through Homi Bhabha’s theoretical concept of mimicry—when similarities conceal and therefore tacitly reproduce and reinforce cultural differences, thus enhancing power asymmetries. Through the systematic content analysis of 151 accounts of similarity in Israel-Korean business alliances—asking who is similar to whom (direction), to what extent (degree), and under what circumstances (context)—this paper reveals similarities construction as a sophisticated othering. Rather than being an effective tool for distance management, similarities-as-mimicry, imposed or desired, determine the hierarchical relations between the compared parties through symbolic projection of being or becoming similar from a superior model to its imitation.

Purpose – This paper aims to propose to politicize partner choice as a discourse that rationalizes, legitimizes and justifies the choice of partners by underlining economic, cultural and institutional differences
to (re)create power relations. By reconceptualizing partner choice as a discourse, the paper challenges the established view of partner choice according to international business and management studies as a rational and strategic behavior based on resource complementarity, best practices and win–win situations.

Design/methodology/approach – Based on the longitudinal study of Israeli–Korean business collaboration, which includes in-depth interviews, observations and media texts, this paper uses critical
discourse analysis (CDA) to demystify partner choice as neither a neutral nor an objective behavior to unveil its discursive construction and embeddedness in power relations.

Findings – The actors on both sides of the Israeli–Korean business collaboration evoke resource complementary discourse between “Israeli innovation” and “Korean productivity” to rationalize their partner
choice as a win–win situation. CDA demonstrates how both sides are engaged in a “borrowing” process from east-to-west and head-to-hands postcolonial images to (re)produce hierarchy between the parties. While east–west mapping remained almost unchallengeable, the reversal, crossing and blurring of the Israel-to-Korea knowledge transfer direction provides a counter-narrative to resource complementarity discourse.

Originality/value – The resource complementarity discourse supported by east–west mapping and “head–hands” justifications for partner choice reveals the lingering presence of postcolonial images, imagery
and imagination. By taking two nations without substantial troubled memories, histories and relations, the paper broadens the picture beyond national contexts, emphasizing the importance of borrowing and
translation from postcolonial vocabulary to non-colonial situations.

Keywords
Critical discourse analysis, Development discourse,
International business and management studies, Partner choice, Postcolonial imagination, Resource complementarity, Postcolonial theory

This article brings a transnational approach to the concept
of diasporic nationalism, often narrowly conceptualized
through the paradoxical link between displaced nation and
territory. Based on a one-year ethnographical account of
the Korean Christian community in Jerusalem, the article
aims to challenge the already troubled concept of diasporic
nationalism through the prism of a religious supranational
“homecoming” to the Holy Land that might both enhance
the national identity and transcend the very significance of
nation and nationalism.
Rather than viewing diasporic individuals as brokers,
educators, and even as “exemplary citizens” or ambassadors
of their historical homelands, I suggest moving away from
a “hypernationalist” framing of diaspora as an extended
nation toward a nuanced understanding of diasporic action
and agency. By juxtaposing national and religious nostalgia
for “imagined homelands,” I argue that while national
identity makes Korean community members outsiders in
an unwelcoming Israeli society, their status as Christians
brings them back to their religious origins through what I call
an “academic pilgrimage.” I ask how the Korean Christian
community, modeled on the concept of nation-within-nation,
negotiates its multiple identities and porous national and
religious boundaries that can reinforce, overlap, or contradict
one another both inwardly and outwardly.
Keywords: academic pilgrimage, diasporic agency, diasporic
nationalism, homecoming, imagined nostalgia, Korean
Christian diaspora

With the increasing appeal of Korean popular culture known as the Korean Wave or hallyu, fans in Israel among Korean studies students have joined—and even replaced—ethnic Koreans in performing nationalism beyond South Korea’s borders, creating what I call hallyu fan-nationalism. As an unintended consequence of hallyu, such nationalism enables non-Korean hallyu fans to take on the empowering roles of cultural experts, educators, and even cultural ambassadors to promote Korea abroad. The symbolic shift from diasporic to hallyu nationalism brings to the fore nonnationalist, nonessentialist, and transcultural perspectives in fandom studies. In tracing the history of Korea Day from the 2000s to the 2010s, I found that hallyu fan-students are mobilized both by the macro mission to promote a positive image of Korea in their home societies and by the micro motivation to repair their own, often stigmatized, self-image.

While the overall majority of Hallyu research has looked at the way fans consume Korean popular culture and how it influences their identity, this paper focuses on the way these fans serve as effective agents for marketing Hallyu and how their fandom empowers them to explore new business and social opportunities. Focusing on what we call "fan entrepreneurship, " this paper examines the evolvement of fan communities in Israel and their role as cultural agents transcending different cultural and social contexts. More specifically, it analyzes their role as promoters, distributers, and entrepreneurs of Hallyu. To examine fan entrepreneurship in action, we focus on three cases of Israeli Hallyu fans who have ventured into new fields in business, education, and social activism to conceptualize the relations between fandom, agency, and the transnational marketing of Hallyu. Our findings suggest that the Hallyu experience in Israel may be relevant for understanding the grassroots processes and mechanisms responsible for the spread and the institutionalization of cultural content across national, ethnic, and linguistic boundaries.

This chapter aims to contribute to the understanding of South Korea’s global position in the world as ex-periphery – a former developing economy that is still involved in the transition from developing to developed status. From an economic perspective, Korea has moved into the category of developed countries but remains marginalized by the association with developing economies. By examining the development-as-a-discourse on the economic miracle known as ‘the Miracle on the Han River’, I seek to understand the primary mechanisms behind the production and reproduction of core-periphery boundaries in Korea’s meteoric rise in the 1980s from a mostly agricultural and technologically backward nation to the 10th-largest economy in the world. More specifically, I ask why, despite its outstanding economic success, Korean development continues to be seen as entangled in the evolutionary process as ‘still a work-in-progress’.

The paradox of becoming part of the economic center while remaining on the geopolitical periphery requires an understanding of Korea’s in-between position and the discovery of alternative narratives derived from beyond the core-periphery dichotomy. As an ex-periphery, Korea occupies a unique position as not-quite-West and not-quite-periphery: it does not conform and poses new challenges to the binaries of North/South, East/West, developed/developing literature. Even though the borders between these binary categories become less well defined as more nations change their economic status, I argue that the images derived from Korea’s peripheral past continue to influence the way in which we imagine it today as caught up in the process of becoming, rather than being, an economic core.

How did the Korean wave reach the entire world in barely 20 years ? What is it in this current that fascinates people from all origins and all ages in K-pop, K-dramas, K-movies, K-food or K-beauty ? Why did it become a new promised land for millions of fans all over the planet - to the point they lean the language, watch videos and get into Korean history and traditions? In this book, they are 13 to share this dream, from Chile to Israel, through France, the USA and, of course, Korea. Comment, en l’espace d’à peine vingt ans, la pop-culture coréenne est-elle parvenue à gagner le monde entier? Qu’est-ce qui, dans sa musique, ses séries télévisées, son cinéma, sa gastronomie ou son industrie cosmétique, peut bien fasciner des personnes de toutes les origines et de tous les âges? Pourquoi est-elle devenue une nouvelle terre promise pour des millions de personnes dans le monde entier qui en apprennent la langue, s’abreuvent de vidéos et se passionnent pour son histoire et ses traditions? Dans ce livre, ils sont treize à partager ce rêve, du Chili à Israël en passant par la France, les États-Unis et, bien sûr, la Corée.

Call for Papers
The Korean Peninsula and the Middle East at 60:
History, Economy, and Culture
International Symposium
22–24 May 2022
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The year 2022 marks 60 years of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Jordan, Iran, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. Likewise, North Korea has developed strong political ties and military and economic cooperation with the Middle Eastern countries over the past six decades. In light of this milestone, the conference aims to provide a complex account of the various historical, economic, and cultural aspects of Korea–Middle East relations, which have been dominated by Cold War politics from the start. We seek to facilitate interdisciplinary research on the multiple connections, meanings, and discourses that have shaped the position and actions of both South Korea and North Korea in the Middle East and vice versa.

While the North Korean-Middle Eastern partnership is largely taken for granted as a “natural” one, despite its ideological divisions, South Korea has promoted diplomatic relations with most countries in the Middle East as part of a wider economic strategy, starting with a “Middle East construction boom” in the 1970s. Both North and South Korea’s relationships with the countries of the Middle East have altered over time in response to their growing global presence and desire for more influence in world affairs. Moreover, since the late 1990s, the appeal of South Korean popular culture, or Hallyu, has reached youth communities across the Middle East. Enthusiasm over Korean TV dramas, movies, K-pop, and fashion in this region adds a layer of connection between the two edges of the Asian continent.

We invite scholars from the humanities and the social sciences to rethink these complex relationships between the Korean peninsula and the Middle East. Individual papers and panel proposals on relations between South and North Korea and the Middle East may include (but are not limited to) the following themes:

    (1) historical, contemporary, and future challenges and opportunities for the Korean peninsula in the Middle East in both regional and global perspectives.
    (2) economic collaboration between the Korean peninsula and the Middle East.
    (3) Korean popular culture in the Middle East.
    (4) South Korea’s cultural diplomacy and “soft power” in Middle Eastern countries.
    (5) lessons to be learned from conflict management in the Korean Peninsula to the Middle East (and the other way around)

Individual presenters may submit an abstract of 300 words and a one-paragraph bio. For panel proposals, please submit a one-page proposal and bios of the speakers.  Write to Dr. Irina Lyan (irina.lyan@mail.huji.ac.il) by February 20, 2022.

Successful applicants will be notified by February 28, 2022, and will be asked to submit a full paper (5,500–7,000 words total) by May 1, 2022, to pursue a publication in a journal special issue.

Accommodations: all conference participants will be offered full accommodation at the university lodge for the duration of the conference. The organizers plan to host a post-conference tour in the Old City of Jerusalem free of charge for conference participants.
Covid-19 notice: We are planning to hold the conference in person in Jerusalem. However, we will be monitoring the ongoing pandemic and will pivot to a hybrid or virtual format if necessary.

Conference Organizers: Dr. Irina Lyan, Prof. Nissim Otmazgin, and Prof. Galia Press-Barnathan, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
For questions regarding the conference, please contact Dr. Lyan at irina.lyan@mail.huji.ac.il

This conference is supported by the 2022 Korean Studies Grant Program of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2022-C-016), the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations, the Louis Frieberg Center for East Asian Studies, and the International Office at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The Department of Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is the oldest in Israel and is one of the largest departments in the Faculty of Humanities, home to over 300 students specializing in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Indian and Indonesian Studies. The department is noted for its excellence in research and teaching, and it maintains an environment of cooperation between students and faculty in a wide array of extracurricular activities (http://en.asia.huji.ac.il).

Transcultural fandom is the place where cultural practices and metaphors diffuse across geographical, ethnic, and linguistic boundaries to share with different fan communities. Transcultural fandom has been Hallyu’s most important focus since Korean popular culture started spreading virally abroad on a massive scale in the mid-2000s.To put it simply, transcultural fandom is one of the major reasons for Hallyu’s rapid acceptance in places outside of Korea. It is currently embraced by communities across the globe, as far as South America, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Hallyu fans usually don’t see themselves as mere consumers of K-pop, Korean TV dramas, or movies, or even as an isolated group of individuals. Actually, they are a part of a wider transcultural network of people sharing similar cultural practices, passions, and preferences.This congress aims to rethink the cultural, economic, and political roles of transcultural fandom within the circulation of popular culture across multiple boundaries.

Academia Goes East

The 14th Conference of Asian Studies in Israel
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
May 23-24, 2018

Panel organizer: Irina Lyan
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
irina@lyan@mail.huji.ac.il

With the rapid rise of East Asian economies and the increase in Asian students’ mobility since the 1990s, English-speaking universities have become the leading exporters of international education, bringing students from “education-starved” developing countries to the West. However, the shift in East Asian economies from developing countries to economic elites challenges a traditional unidirectional flow of academic knowledge from the West to the rest of the world. Since East Asia has improved its economic position from that of a backward region to a so-called rising “dragon,” “tiger,” or another economic miracle, its images have shifted: Asian students have come to be treated as a valuable asset worth competing for. This panel calls to challenge the existing focus on education economy by exploring the blurring boundary between the academy and corporation. By examining “going East”—a concept that originated in the international business environment and has penetrated educational institutions—the goal of this panel is to understand the expansion of education markets toward East Asia from interdisciplinary approach.

The Department of Asian Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem is pleased to announce its hosting of an international conference, " Korean Diaspora and the Arts. " There has been great interest in the study of the Korean diaspora in the last two decades, during which we have witnessed scholars' active engagement with the Korean diaspora especially in the fields of anthropology, sociology, ethnography, and art. Drawing on this scholarship, this conference aims to bring together innovative approaches that will deepen our understanding of the historical, cultural, and political experiences of Korean diasporic individuals and communities as reflected in creative works—literature, films, multimedia works, performance art, music, popular culture, etc.—as well as scholarly works that deal with diasporic artists. By closely examining both well-known and lesser-known artworks and artists, the conference is hoping to explore how the living experiences of the Korean diaspora can be articulated through creative means; and what purposes the arts serve for diasporic individuals and communities. We welcome individual papers and panel proposals that examine representations of the Korean diaspora in creative works; and that investigate lives and philosophies of diasporic artists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We will also consider papers that contain innovative theoretical, historical, and sociological approaches to the Korean diaspora.

Individual abstracts and panel proposals (with abstracts for each of the panelists) should be sent to koreadisapora@gmail.com by January 30, 2017. Successful applicants will be notified by February 28, 2017, and asked to send their working papers (3,000–4,000 words) at least two weeks prior to the conference. Questions regarding the conference and the proposal submission process can be sent to: Dr. Jooyeon Rhee (jooyeon.rhee@gmail.com) or Ira Lyan (irlyan@gmail.com).

Accommodation
The conference provides two nights at the university lounge (May 21-23) and accommodation during the conference. A free guided tour to The Old City (or Dead Sea/Masada) will be provided for all participants on May 24.

Sponsors:
The Academy of Korean Studies, The Louis Frieberg Center for East Asian Studies, and The Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace

Organizing Committee
Dr. Jooyeon Rhee, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Ira Lyan, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Department of Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is the oldest in Israel and is one of the biggest departments in the Faculty of Humanities, home to over 300 students specializing in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indian Studies. The department is characterized by its excellence in research and teaching, and it maintains an environment of cooperation between students and faculty in a wide array of extracurricular activities. To read more about the department, visit: http://asia.huji.ac.il/en

Previous Conferences on Korean Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem:
2013 The “Miracle” Narratives of the Korean Cultural Industries: Perspectives from the Middle East
2014 Cultural Geography of the Hallyu: Mapping the World through Korean Popular Culture
2015 Transnational Cultural Interactions between Korea and Japan
2016 Mobility, Creativity, and Collectivity: Making Sites in Contemporary Korean Visual Culture

The “Miracle” Narrative of the Korean Cultural Industries: Perspectives from the Middle East
International Conference May 8-9, 2013
The Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
In the Middle East, as in other parts of the world, the Korean cultural industries have proved extremely efficient in introducing new images of Korea to new audiences. Known as the ‘Korean Wave’, TV dramas, Korean pop music, and Korean cinema has been successful not only commercially, but has also left viewers with an image of Korea as a home of a vibrant culture and artistic innovation. This impression has stimulated interest in Korea and its culture, resulting in a rise in tourism and in the establishment of new Korean studies programs in institutions of higher education. Korea has never been so popular and familiar in the Middle East as it is today. 
The purpose of this conference is to examine the way Korean popular culture is being appropriated and received in the Middle East, and to examine the social and academic developments it inspires. The conference presentations will attempt to develop an integrative framework to analyze the dynamic relations between cultural industry, cultural consumption, and academic studies through a focus on the experience of the Korean Wave in the Middle East.
In a broader sense, looking at the Middle East allows us to examine how Korean culture is being received outside the geographically and culturally-proximate markets of Asia and outside the major economic markets of North America and Europe. The success of the Korean cultural industries in a geographically distant and culturally remote Middle East may exemplify the resilience and ability of cultural industries to go beyond national and regional boundaries, and reach out to audiences of various nationalities and ethnicities.
The conference will focus on four major issues: (a) Harbingers, industries, agents, and fans involved in bringing the "Korean Wave" to the Middle East (b) Acceptance and integration of the Korean Wave within the local and other imported (American) popular cultures (c) Relations between Korean cultural presence and Korean academic studies (d) Perspectives, images, and stereotypes of Korea in the Middle East.
Proposals (both individual and panel proposals), including name, institutional affiliation, the title of the paper, and an abstract of 400 words (with relevant keywords listed), should be sent by December 10th, 2012 to KoreanWaveMiddleEast@gmail.com. Successful applicants would be asked to send the complete paper of 5,000 words by April 10th, 2013. The organizers will make an effort to secure funding for accommodations to presenters from abroad.
Sponsor: The Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace and The Louis Frieberg Center for East Asian Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
For inquiries please contact: Dr. Nissim Otmazgin (nissim.otmazgin@mail.huji.ac.il) or Mrs. Irina Lyan (irina.lyan@mail.huji.ac.il).

The popularity of Korean films, TV dramas, pop music, and online games has been phenomenal, continuously reaching audience in many parts of the world. It has also gained scholarly attention from researchers beyond Korean studies who approach the content and the phenomenon of Hallyu from multiple perspectives. In response to the growing interest in Hallyu among scholars of popular culture, media studies, gender studies, spectatorship, and visual culture, The Department of East Asian Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and The World Association of Hallyu Studies (WAHS) is hosting the second international conference on Hallyu, focusing on the ways in which Korean popular culture produces a new geopolitical knowledge about Korea and map out social and cultural lives of audience inside and outside Korea.

Visual media plays a significant role in mediating the knowledge of place, space, distance, and scale; and produces meanings of individual and national identity, nationhood, and the worlds imaginary map. The conference, the cultural geography of Hallyu, is an attempt to examine how the mapping of representations and realities of Korea is constructed through Hallyu; how it generates and mediates knowledge about Korean culture and society; and finally how it helps people to imagine their position (both physical and cognitive) in the world vis-a-vis Korea.

Organizing Committee:
Dr. Jooyeon Rhee, Dr. Nissim Otmazgin, and Mrs. Irina Lyan, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Prof. Park Gil-Sung and Prof. Oh Ingyu, Korea University

This conference is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Embassy of Korea in Israel, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the World Association of Hallyu Studies, the Frieberg Center for East Asians Studies and the Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace."

Until the late 1990s, the word “Korea” did not say much to an average Israeli, in spite of the gradual improvement of political and economic relations. A major shift occurred in late 2000s, with the arrival of Korean TV dramas, and later K-pop, to Israel and the consequential rise of modicum fan culture. In a short period of time, tens of virtual communities of fans of Hallyu were created and Korean culture has become more familiar than ever before.
The literature on the transnational spread of Hallyu many times focuses on cultural proximity or on the ability of the Korean cultural industries and governments to market highly designed set of entertaining products. These explanations do not fit Israel, where Korean culture is perceived rather as exotic and different and where the acceptance of Hallyu is based on the activities undertaken by dedicated fans. This paper focuses on cross-cultural interactions between Israeli fans and images of Korean popular culture in order to reveal the mechanisms of hybridity, mimicry and resistance in the “third space” of consumption. 
Based on an online questionnaire survey, interviews, discourse analysis of fans’ online communities and participant observations of Korea related activities, this paper argues that Hallyu fans in Israel are not passive recipients but rather serve as assertive cultural agents (Jenkins 2006) that shape and construct “Koreaness” in adjustment to the local environment. Their embodiment of "Korea" into local discourses includes rejection or adoption of Korean fashion and looks, remakes of K-pop videos, and creation of imagined "Korean" spaces made of complex virtual interactions.

In the increasingly competitive world markets, the strategy of expanding and crossing cultural and geographical boundaries has become a prominent feature of global firms. The newcomers—organizations from emerging market economies—have embraced the idea of going global. Yet international management research has focused on economic exchanges among Western countries while ignoring the discourse of uneven globalization between the global core and its periphery. The present study examines the interplay between developed and developing economies in international collaborations between two ex-peripheral countries, South Korea and Israel. More specifically, it explores cultural images by which developing economies are produced, circulated, and perceived as workers negotiate their own identity in comparison to the imagined Others.
Even though critical management studies examine East-West power relations, Israel and Korea do not fall neatly into the categories of “developed” and “developing,” and the relations between them do not reflect a clear-cut power hierarchy. Rather, Israeli-Korean research and development (R&D) ventures are perceived as forms of equal economic partnership by both governments, for which they provide an extensive support for collaboration. At the micro level, however, these perceptions of partnership are formed through the imagining of the Other. Both Korea and Israel function as a looking-glass in defining people’s own culture and society in a global context as “Western-like versus Asian,” and the “Start-up Nation” versus “The Republic of Samsung.” In turn, these cultural images become important factors for Israeli and Korean firms in selecting partners, thus affecting group dynamics in collaborative projects and influencing managers’ decision making in the labor division.
To this end I conducted 58 semi-structured interviews with Israeli and Korean managers about their collaborative work experience, as well as 12 observations of Israeli-Korean business events. I examined relevant media texts as well. After conducting a qualitative data analysis, I identified four contradictory narratives that define Israel and Korea as Western-like or not Western-like and as similar to or different from each other. Since almost every interview has included all of the narratives despite the contradictions between them, the findings illuminate the way in which the fluid nature of these seemingly fixed categories blurs East-West and Korean-Israeli hierarchies. In this paper I focus on the most dominant narrative of difference between "Israeli innovative thinkers" and "Korean doers" analyzing its discourse and practical implications and their role on recreating of developed/developing categories.

In the increasingly competitive international markets, the strategy of expanding and crossing cultural and geographical borders has become a prominent feature found in many global business organizations. International collaboration is now commonly conducted in a “third space” within which multiple cultures co-exist; yet, cultural images of the “Other” are also produced and reproduced in this collaboration space as well. The present study examines the issue of cultural images in international collaboration by investigating the ways in which Israeli managers perceive their Korean colleagues in international R&D joint ventures I have been exploring since 2008.
At a macro level, Israel and South Korea are among the miracles of the global knowledge economy. While the countries differ greatly—with Korea numbering 50 million people as compared with Israel’s 8 million and with Korea boasting of a 2011 GNP of over $1.5 trillion US as compared with Israel’s $218 billion US—both countries are classified as “emerging markets” and, and at the same time, “developed.”
The global knowledge economy has brought both countries to an interesting point of interaction: while the Korean conglomerates—which, by 2012 accounted for over 80% of the Korean economy—are seeking to elevate their creative knowledge, Israel’s successful R&D industry has built the country’s reputation as a “Start-up Nation” and as a hub of high-technology production. As a result, Korea and Israel have came to be viewed as complementary, rather than competing, economies.
Most cross-cultural management scholarship focuses on political and economic exchanges inside the global North, while ignoring the discourse of uneven globalization between the global core and its periphery. Even though critical studies examine West-East power relations, Israel and Korea do not neatly fall into the categories of developed and developing and the relations between them do not display a clear-cut power hierarchy. Rather, Israeli-Korean R&D joint ventures are perceived as forms of equal economic partnership by both nations where their governments provide an extensive support for collaboration.
At a micro level, however, these perceptions of partnership and the nation-state are formed through the process of imagining the “Other.” Korea functions as a mirror to Israeli managers when imagining their local culture and society in a global context, defining their identity as “Western-like versus Asian,” and the “Start-up nation” versus “The Republic of Samsung.” In turn, these cultural images become important factors for Israeli firms in selecting partners, affect group dynamics in collaborative projects and managers’ decision making in the labor division.
It also should be noted that Korea and Koreans are (re)imagined in Israeli context not only through the Israeli-Korean business interaction; they are also defined by Israeli managers in their juxtaposition of Korea with Japan, China, and Singapore. In other words, cultural images produced in Israel are attributed to individual nations and Asia as a whole. Thus, this paper scrutinizes the ways in which images of Korea are produced, circulated, and perceived in its cultural and geographical proximity with other Asian nations in Israel context by using my case studies of international R&D joint venture.

Abstract
The Korean Wave or Hallyu originally referred to the flow of Korean pop culture into the rest of East Asia. The academic literature addresses the different aspects of the Hallyu phenomena, but it is still limited with the Korean Wave’s spread in Asian region. As a result, most studies explain Hallyu’s success by close cultural, historical affinity, proximity and the right chord of Asian sentiments, while neglecting transcultural flows beyond Asia. Thus, these explanations cannot suit the Israeli case study, where Korean culture is perceived as exotic, distant and different. However, trunscultural flows are not one-way process, but rather negotiating process of going back and forward between foreign and hosting cultures. In this process the Korean Wave’s fans in Israel are cultural agents that shape and construct “Koreaness” in adjustment to the local environment. Fandom itself becomes the journey that transforms the cultural identity of its participant and connects it to the liminal space of between home and “promised land,” known and unknown, familiar and ideal.
Until the late 90’s the word “Korea” didn’t say much to an average Israeli. With the growth of political and economic relations between the two countries this lacuna was gradually dissolving, but the cultural influence of Korea was not yet felt in Israel. The shift towards cultural acknowledgement of Korea came in late 2000s with entering of Hallyu or Korean Wave in Israel. In 2006 the first Korean drama was aired on Israeli channel and gained high popularity.
In order to understand the "Israeli Hallyu" the methodological part combines various methods in an attempt to triangulate different sources of information. Based on discourse analysis of communities’ entries, informal discussions with fans, and media texts an electronic survey was conducted with the questions, which pertained mainly to issues of recognition and exposure to the dramas as well as to awareness of the country of origin. In total 395 completed questionnaires were collected by 390 women and 5 men. With the estimated number of Korean fans community in Israel of above 4,000 members, this questionnaire sample has a relatively high percentage of 10% of the research population.
The most important characteristic of the research population is that the majority of fans had never been in Korea and began to experience Korean culture mostly through the Korean dramas. Therefore Korean culture in Israel is mediated by the consumption of popular culture as an unknown and distant “Other” at least at the beginning. In the process of consumption, this Other is domesticated from being “they” to becoming “us” and visa versa. Korea and Korean culture are both re-territorialized and de- territorialized into “imagined communities” of the Korean Wave’s fans.
In contrast to the studies that concentrate on macro level of the Korean Wave’s spread (for example, governmental support of Hallyu), the current study provides the rare insight inside the fan’s community and its dynamic relations to the fandom subject – the Korean Wave.

Key words: Korean popular culture, Korean Wave, Fandom studies, Online communities, Cultural “Otherness,” Israel studies

Until the late 1990s the word “Korea” didn’t say much to an average Israeli. With the growth of political and economic relations between the two countries this lacuna was gradually filling, but the cultural influence of Korea was not yet felt in Israel. The shift occurred in early 2000s with the arrival of Hallyu to Israel. In 2003, the first Korean drama was aired on Israeli TV, My Lovely Sam Soon. The program gained such popularity that the TV channel decided, after being pressed by the public, to bring more Korean dramas to Israel. This led to the creation of tens of virtual communities by fans of Korean culture. The hypothesis of this paper is that this social media revolution generated the “Israeli Hallyu.”

The academic literature attempted to analyze the secret of this major success of the Hallyu phenomena, but it still mainly focuses on its spread in Asian countries, with a few exceptions. Most theories explain Hallyu’s success by cultural proximity and close background, while neglecting the impact of local interactions and social networks. In addition, these explanations do not fit Israel, where Korean culture is perceived as exotic and different. In order to understand the “Israeli Hallyu” an electronic survey was conducted in the Israeli social networks used by Korean culture lovers. This research also followed the interactions in a forum on Korean culture that includes the largest community in Israel (around 3000 fans). This forum successfully organized volunteers to translate Korean dramas, movies and music to Hebrew. The main argument is that the Korean-culture audience in Israel is not a passive recipient in a one-way process, but rather, its members are cultural agents that shape and construct “Koreaness” in adjustment to the local environment. This process is mediated by virtual communities in the circle of consumption. First, the agent consumes the product and shares one’s knowledge and emotions in social networks. This in the turn creates a strong feeling of belonging to this virtual community, as well the feeling of being unique due to exotic sense of culture. These highly positive emotions encourage additional consumption. What is intriguing in this process is the gap between authentic culture and its final product. The Korean Wave is not only the Korean culture itself, but also the reflection of it by local consumers via virtual communities, where the “Koreaness” is presented again to adapt to the culturally distant local market."

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hallyu-2-0-Korean-Perspectives-Contemporary/dp/0472072528

נשיאת דרום קוריאה פארק ג'ן הייאה חיסלה כנראה את הקריירה הפוליטית שלה במו ידיה לאחר שנחשף שנתנה לחברתה להתערב בענייני מדינה, בהם הסודיים ביותר, ולהרוויח עשרות מיליוני דולרים בזכות הקרבה ביניהן
https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4873716,00.html

Open Call to Candidates
Korean Language Teacher, Department of Asian Studies
Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Department of Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem invites applications for the temporary position of Korean Language Teacher. The aims of the Korean Studies Program are to provide students with a solid language basis in the framework of their undergraduate studies and in preparation for graduate studies and the international job market.

Requirements
• Native or near-native speaker of Korean
• An academic degree in a related field of study, preferably a Master's degree
• Open-minded team player; ability to co-teach with colleagues is a must
• Motivation and mindset to further develop the Korean language program
• Desire to further professionalize in language teaching and curriculum development
• Passion for teaching and inter-cultural communication
• Technologically savvy and able to adapt to extensive use of digital platforms

The position is being offered on a temporary basis as a substitute teacher from October 2023 to September 2024, with the potential to compete for long-term employment in the future. Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. Applicants are asked to send a CV and cover letter (in English or in Hebrew) by June 20, 2023 to the Head of the Korean Studies Program, Dr. Ira Lyan: irina.lyan@mail.huji.ac.il

Qualified candidates will be invited to interview (in person or via Zoom), and if found suitable, will be asked to teach a mock Korean beginner lesson to the hiring committee.

For further information about Korean Studies Program at the Hebrew University, please visit https://en.asia.huji.ac.il/