Overview

Woori Han (she/her) is a lecturer in Media and Communications at the Department of Communications, Drama, and Film at the University of Exeter, UK. Her research centers on media and cultural activisms, popular culture, and the body at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and class. Her book manuscript, tentatively titled Aspiring Subjects: Queer Media Activism in Neoliberal South Korea, focuses on contemporary, transnational Korean queer feminist activisms to examine  how digital media and cultural production have become a critical site where contested global and local sexual politics and networked affects can construct social movements, backlashes, and new subjectivities. She is also working on two additional projects: (1) the examination of the transcultural reception of Korean popular culture through an intersectional feminist lens of a Korean reality TV show, and (2) an inquiry into the relationship between digitally mediated bodies and the rise of conservative gender, sexual, and race politics. Her research on the cultural translation of transnational feminist movements, feminist media critiques, and queer cultural activism has been published in Communication, Culture & Critique, Media, Culture & Society, and Korea Journal. She was a recipient of top student paper awards from ICA (International Communication Association) and NCA (National Communication Association). She holds a PhD from the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication and the Center on Digital Culture and Society at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Research

Activist Media; Global Digital Culture; Feminist and Queer Media Studies; Popular Culture; Media Representations; Body and Performance; Transnational Feminisms; Affect; Queer of Color Critiques

Publications

Han, W. (forthcoming). Korean Romance for Wholesomeness and Racism? The Transcultural Reception of Reality Dating Show Single’s Inferno. In B. Han & D. Oh (Eds.), Cross-Racial Consumption of Korean Media: Racial Translocalism and the Reception of Korean Popular Culture Outside Asia. University of Washington Press.

Han, W. (2021). Reconfiguring the pandemic norms and imagining collective care through sexuality. Korean Journal of Communication & Information Studies, 110, 49-79. [Korean]

Han, W. (2018). Proud of myself as LGBTQ: The Seoul Pride parade, homonationalism, and queer developmental citizenship. Korea Journal, 58(2), 27-57.

Han, W. (2017). SlutWalk Korea: Translation, cultural production, and the politics of possibility. Communication, Culture & Critique, 10(2), 221-240. DOI: 10.1111/cccr.12161

Han, W., Lee, C., & Park, J. (2017). Gendering the authenticity of the military experience: Male audience responses to the Korean reality show Real Men. Media, Culture & Society, 39(1), 62-76.

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Teaching

I am the co-convenor for the MA module Media and Communications: Advanced Theory and Concepts and will teach 4 sessions for this module.

Modules taught

• CMMM001 - Media and Communications: Advanced Theory and Concepts

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