Encounters with Samulnori
Subtitle: The Cultural Politics of South Korea's Dynamic Percussion Genre
Contributors: Shelemay, Kay K.; Wolf, Richard K.; Monson, Ingrid T.
Published: 2012
Language: eng
Description: This dissertation interrogates how diverse actors ascribe semantic, affective, and political meanings to instrumental music under changing historical circumstances and in different performance contexts. In what I call an "ethnographic reception study," I employ historical and ethnographic methods to assess the ways in which the popular samulnori percussion genre from South Korea has been imbued with associations as divergent as a sonic symbol of Korea to narratives of resistance against the state. Through five chapters, I track some of the contested and multiple meanings as they interact, both in historical moments in South Korea and vis-à-vis transnational circulations that led to the genre's transmission outside Korea. As a genre of percussion music that was first created in South Korea in 1978, samulnori has had a complex reception during three dramatic decades in modern Korean history--leading to life-changing encounters from its fans while also eliciting scorn from its detractors.
Notes: Keywords: ethnography, music and globalization, music and politics, reception studies, South Korea, transnational circulations.

Thesis Ph.D. Harvard University 2012