Scholars of film history and feminist studies will appreciate the breadth of work in this volume.

This dissertation explores the values and practices of young, middle-class South Koreans and what it means for them to live a good life. Based on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork, it attends to the pathways and life trajectories of young adults living, studying and working in Seoul, the country’s economic, political, cultural and educational centre. Due to changing economic conditions, it appears to be increasingly difficult for young people today to reproduce middle-class status. In public discourse, these difficulties are expressed in the terms ‘Spec’ or ‘Give-up Generation’. At the same time, young people are starting to question middle-class lifestyles and values and turn to practices which emphasise different standards. The author illustrates how young adults negotiate middle-class ideals by contextualising the values around four key themes – education, marriage, consumption, and work. In doing so, she explores her interlocutors’ thoughts and reflections about middle-class values through a theoretical and methodological framework centred on ordinary ethics and the everyday use of money. This ethnography sheds light on the complex and heterogenous ways young people in South Korea conceptualise and realise the good in their lives, and it focuses attention on the explicitness of ethics and the relationship between money and values in these young Seoulites’ everyday lives and social relations.

Asian Cultural Studies or Cultural Studies in Asia is a new and burgeoning field, and the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Journal is at its cutting edge. Committed to bringing Asian Cultural Studies scholarship to the international English speaking world and constantly challenging existing conceptions of cultural studies, the journal has emerged as the leading publication in Cultural Studies in Asia. The Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Reader brings together the best of the ground breaking papers published in the journal and includes a new introduction by the editors, Chen Kuan-Hsing and Chua Beng Huat. Essays are grouped in thematic sections, including issues which are important across the region, such as State violence and social movements and work produced by IACS sub-groups, such as feminism, queer studies, cinema studies and popular culture studies. The Reader provides useful alternative case studies and challenging perspectives, which will be invaluable for both students and scholars in media and cultural studies.

This second edition considers advertising in the context of current changes in communication. All chapters have been fully revised and updated, and substantial new material has been added. The social functions and aesthetic effects of advertisements are comprehensively analysed across a wide range of media, from billboards to email and the Internet. Controversially, advertisements are contrasted and compared with literary texts throughout. The book clearly explains relevant concepts from semiotics, poetics, and linguistics, and can serve as an introduction to all of these disciplines. Practical exercises to stimulate further discussion are included at the end of each chapter.

This book provides a holistic analysis of South Korea’s strategic use of mega-events in its modern development. It examines the Summer Olympics (1988), the World Expo (1993), the FIFA World Cup (2002), and the Winter Olympics (2018) over the past 30 years of the country’s rapid growth, and across varying stages of economic and political development. It explains how mega-events helped to secure South Korea’s position on the international stage, boost nationalism, propel economic growth in export-oriented national companies, and build cities that accommodate – as well as represent – South Korea’s progress. It thereby highlights the broader implications for today’s global phenomenon of increasing reliance on mega-events as a catalyst for development, while the criticism that mega-events do more harm than good proliferates. The book is ideal for academics, policymakers, and those with an interest in mega-events and their role in the development of non-western countries.

Published in conjunction with the exhibition Douglas Gordon: Timeline, held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from June 11-September 4, 2006.

The fourth edition of the essential introduction to digital art, one of contemporary art’s most exciting and dynamic forms of practice. Digital art, along with the technological developments of its medium, has rapidly evolved from the “digital revolution” into the social media era and then to the postdigital and post-Internet landscape. This new, expanded edition of Christiane Paul’s acclaimed book traces the emergence of artificial intelligence, augmented and mixed realities, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and surveys themes explored by digital artworks in the areas of activism, networks and telepresence, and ecological art andthe Anthropocene. It also examines issues surrounding the collection, presentation, and preservation of digital art. It looks at the impact of digital techniques and media on traditional forms of art, such as printing, painting, photography, and sculpture, as well as exploring the ways in which the Internet and software art, digital installation, and virtual reality have emerged as recognized artistic practices. Digital Art is an accessible and engaging text that brings to life individual works, explaining in clear terms how they use technologyto produce artworks with a radical new aesthetic and thematic and interactive qualities. It is an essential critical guide to all forms of digital art.