Pil Ho Kim specializes in Korean society and culture. A sociologist by training, he has been studying and teaching cover a wide range of topics related to modern Korea, including popular music, cinema, literature, urban culture, and social polarization. He has published research articles in positions: asia critique, Korean Studies, Journal of Japanese and Asian Cinema, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Korea Observer, and Acta Koreana, among others. He is the author of Polarizing Dreams: Gangnam and Popular Culture in Globalizing Korea (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2024), which takes an unflinching look at Gangnam, the epicenter of Hallyu (the Korean Wave). The Gangnam portrayed in this book is the site of rampant disaster capitalism and rising inequality as well as the engine of cultural and technological innovation. His next book project investigates the trans-Pacific cultural impact of Black freedom movements on modern Korean history: Abolitionist literature in Colonial Korea, Civil Rights songs circulated among South Korean democracy activists, K-pop fandom’s support for Black Lives Matter, and other notable cases over the course of more than a century.