For nearly two decades, from Tell Me Something (1999) and Nowhere to Hide (1999) to The Wailing (2016)  the neo-noir film has been a vibrant part of South Korean cinema. A few films, such as Memories of Murder (2003) and Park Chan-wook’s “Revenge Trilogy,” have enjoyed popular and critical success. Yet as Hyangjin Lee has noted, “Western scholarship on Asian cinema tends to pay little serious attention to gangster or crime thrillers, despite the significance of the genre in the region” (118). For a panel addressing the richness of South Korean neo-noir, the organizers welcome proposals for twenty-minute presentations critically examining these films from either stylistic, thematic, or cultural perspectives that illustrate and define this exciting genre.

 In addition to analyses of individual films and filmmakers, topics might include:

The influences of Hong Kong or Japanese cinema on Korean neo-noir

Korean neo-noir’s cultural critique

Stylistic and Structural Conventions of Korean neo-noir

How Korean neo-noir films challenge Confucian traditions.

How Korean neo-noir films challenge Eurocentric universalism and Orientalism

The Korean neo-noir as a mixed-genre hybrid.

Please send an electronic copy of your 300 word abstract to Professors Marshall Deutelbaum: nitrate@purdue.edu and William Covey: william.covey@sru.edu  by August 10th, 2017. Individuals who have submitted proposals will be notified by August 14th, 2017.