Once upon a time, we were regular people going about our separate lives. One day, we realized our mutual love of Kpop. When we shared our stories, we found that there really was not one place where you could find out about idols that didn’t focus on what hair color they chose that month (we’re talking about you, Heechul and G-Dragon) or who has the best chocolate abs (looking at you, 2PM). It was also hard to find someone to share your opinion of the last episode of Boys Over Flowers you saw.  Some of us are academics, and we wanted to talk about Korean popular culture in a scholarly way.

Crystal S. Anderson, Michelle Brew Baxter and Kuylain Howard founded KPK: Kpop Kollective in January 2011 to study, seriously discuss, write about and collect information on Hallyu (Korean Wave) popular culture, particularly Kpop artists and Kdramas, for people around the world.

Since that time, KPK has developed into a research initiative that features a collaborative digital humanities project that organizes information on Korean popular music (KPOPIANA) as well as research projects by individual members on various aspects of Hallyu.

Click here to see a brief video on the mission of KPK!

You can contact KPK at: kpkgenadm@gmail.com

Members

CeeFu is Crystal S. Anderson (PhD) is an Associate Professor at Elon University, NC (USA).  She is Editor-in-Chief of KPK: Kpop Kollective and Exhibition Designer and Editor for KPOPIANA. She is also Exhibition Designer and Curator for her own digital humanities project,  iFans: Mapping Kpop’s International Fandom and Principal Investigator for the Hallyu Kpop and Hallyu Kdrama studies.  These projects are part of her research in comparative cultural studies (African American, Asian, Asian American). She also teaches classes in American Studies, African American literature and culture and Asian popular culture.  When she’s not watching a sageuk Kdrama, she is also Assistant Chief Editor and Editorial Writer for hellokpop.com and a Worldwide Korea Blogger.  The 4D leader of KPK, she is a Changjo and a SS501 girl with Shawol and E.L.F. tendencies. Visit her blog, High Yellow, to find out more, or email her at canderson14@elon.edu or drceefu@gmail.com.

Nunee/KDK is Kaetrena Davis Kendrick, M.S.L.S., Senior Fellow for Instructional Design and Information Management at KPK and faculty librarian at the University of South Carolina Lancaster. She knows her way around Internets, databases, archives, and any other places that are important to the creation, organization, and distribution of information. In short: she can find stuff! She pines for Rain, loves listening to SHINee and may be falling for U-know Yunho. She thinks she can master the “Noona Neomu Yueppo” choreography with the help of ibuprofen and a cold pack. Find out more about her scholarship here or feel free to email her at kaetrena@mailbox.sc.edu.