As the organizers of the Korean Popular Culture Workshop 2010, hosted by the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and co-sponsored by the AKS (Academy of Korean Studies), we are writing to request your participation in this event scheduled to be held at the Doubletree Hotel (Santa Ana/Orange County Airport), June 25-26, 2010. The two-day event seeks to provide a forum that will promote transnational exchange and dialogue between scholars teaching and conducting research on Korean popular culture at institutions in the United States, South Korea, and elsewhere.

Meals, hotel accommodations (up to three nights), and travel expenses will be remunerated by the organizing committee. Please make air travel arrangements on your own (FINAL DESTINATION: Santa Ana [SNA] John Wayne Airport) and submit your receipt to us as soon as you can. We would appreciate it if you could also provide your SSN (Social Security Number), your mailing address, contact number, and your bio (max. 250 words) when you submit your travel itinerary and receipt. Please bear in mind that the maximum reimbursement for travelers from the West Coast (West of Mississippi) will be $300; from the East Coast (East of Mississippi), $600; and for international travelers, $1,200. (No ground transportation receipts can be reimbursed). We will also provide a modest honorarium for faculty who are scheduled to speak. The processing of honorarium and travel expenses will take approximately 6-8 weeks.

The workshop will mostly take place at the meeting room at the Doubletree Club Orange County Airport, where guests will be accommodated. The Doubletree Hotel’s address is:

7 Hutton Centre Dr.
Santa Ana, CA 92707-5794
United States of America
(714) 751-2400

Graduate students and several faculty will be asked to share a room.

Again, when you make your travel arrangements, please make sure that the final destination is John Wayne Airport (SNA) in Santa Ana. The Doubletree Hotel provides shuttles to and from the airport. Please call 1-714-751-2400 in advance to arrange for the airport shuttle service, or pick up the Doubletree Hotel courtesy phone located at the airport. The Doubletree Hotel is only a 5-minute drive from the airport.

For those who are presenting on June 25th (Fri), please submit your paper no later than May 10, 2010. And for those presenting in the Graduate/Post-Grad Workshop on June 26th (Sat), please submit your papers no later than May 30, 2010.

Participants coming from abroad who do not have a work permit in the US are required to obtain proper authorization as you enter the US port. This visa information will be sent to you separately by the East Asian Lang & Lit department manager Mindy Han (mindyhan@uci.edu).

Since this is an invitation-only workshop, please let us know if you’d like to request or recommend another guest/participant. The workshop will proceed bilingually for the most part, but since most of the participants are fluent in both Korean and English, only Question/Answer and discussion will be simultaneously translated.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact workshop director Kyung Hyun Kim (kyunghk@uci.edu; 213-399-9599), department manager Mindy Han (mindyhan@uci.edu; 949-824-2165, or coordinator Hyun Seon Park (hyunsp@uci.edu; 714-904-3468).

We look forward to having you join us for what promises to be an exciting transnational dialogue between scholars teaching and conducting research on Korean popular culture.