Flexner Lecture: The Tao of K-Drama: Naming the Moment

Part of the Flexner Lectureship Series

Established in honor of Mary Flexner, a Bryn Mawr graduate of the class of 1895, this year's Flexner Lecturer is Mindy Thompson Fullilove '71, a social psychiatrist and professor of urban policy and health at The New School. Here are Mindy Fullilove's thoughts about this second lecture in her lecture series:

"K-dramas tell the story of a complex interpersonal episode, what sociologists call “a situation.” The situation is a vital nexus of human experience and its investigation reveals social, political and emotional relationships at many levels of scale and in many systems. In K-dramas, the story is launched by some kind of trauma, often taken from real events. The image here is that of the memorial wall commemorating 159 lives lost on Halloween, 2022, in the Itaewon neighborhood of Seoul. The neighborhood was the site of a popular K-drama, Itaewon Class, which aired while people were sheltering from Covid. Halloween 2022 presented an opportunity to visit the neighborhood. Massive crowds arrived and disaster ensued. The mourning is deep because so many are gone too soon. These are the kinds of stories that K-drama tackles, trying to excavate the ways in which people make their way forward from such a time. This lecture will use K-drama’s exploration of situations to illuminate the process of “naming the moment,” a critical tool for anyone trying to manage in our rapidly shifting world. I will illustrate these issues with the K-drama, Just Between Lovers, in which survivors of a building collapse seek to make a memorial ten years after the tragedy took place. I will explore parallels to our own experience with the un-naming of Old Library."

Refreshments will be served. 

Register for in-person attendance access the virtual livestream (11/9/23 - 6:45 p.m. est)

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