Mr Ryan Gardener
Postgraduate research student
Ryan Gardener is a Postgraduate research student within Film at the University of Southampton.
2011-2014: BA(Hons) Film at University of Southampton
2014-2015: MA Film at University of Southampton
Ryan Gardener is a Postgraduate research student within Film at the University of Southampton.
2011-2014: BA(Hons) Film at University of Southampton
2014-2015: MA Film at University of Southampton
‘Screaming Silently: Contemporary Korean Cinema, Haan, and Emotional Realism’
Fully-funded by the AHRC SWW DTP, my research centres around contemporary South Korean cinema with respect to the cultural concept, haan (loosely defined as accumulated and inherited grief, or resentment). Seen largely by the Korean people as a feeling or sentiment intrinsic to their own worldview, haan has inherent significance to Korean national cinema, and to Korean culture more generally. Accordingly, my thesis looks to understand haan’s role and its function within a contemporary South Korean cinema that in recent years has become increasingly influenced by western and other transnational forms of genre and blockbuster filmmaking. Using predominantly textual analysis, I draw upon aspects of social realism and affect theory, and locate haan as key to how contemporary Korean cinema communicates notions of ‘Koreanness’ throughout a range of genres and recent cinematic trends. In doing so, I look to examine what evocations of haan by Korean cinema communicate to us about Korean culture and society, and what social function those evocations offer audiences.
Supervisors: Prof. Tim Bergfelder, Dr. Corey Schultz, and Dr. Felicity Gee (University of Exeter)