The Dynamic Essence of Transmedia Storytelling - A Graphical Approach to The Journey to the West in Korea

-Associate Prof. Dr. Barbara Wall (University of Copenhagen)

Special Lecture Series on Classical Korean Literature: Research and Translations

The special lecture series „Classical Korean Literature: Research and Translations“ brings to the wider audience new insights into Korean literary heritage and current trends in presenting Classical Korean literature to the international audience. Individual lectures of the series will be held by distinguished scholars within the field of Korean literature of Koryŏ (918–1392) and Chosŏn times (1392–1910), who will introduce their recent publications. Thorsten Traulsen’s translation of Buddha’s biography written in Korean alphabet, Barbara Wall’s analyses of Korean perception of a legendary Chinese monkey, Dennis Wuerthner’s rendition of Koryŏ literati stories and poetry or Elena Kondratyeva’s work on memoirs of Korean queen show a fascinating richness of Korean literary heritage and at the same time indicate recent trends in introducing, translating and marketing this cultural commodity. Talks and following discussions present a rare opportunity to see Korean literature research and translation „in making“; in the course of lectures will be discussed problems presented by the multiscriptual nature of the literary canon written both in Literary Sinitic and Korean alphabet, difficulties of reading the original documents, role of the English as a medium in Korean Studies or strategies to secure funding for such projects and publications.

Lecture abstract:

The Dynamic Essence of Transmedia Storytelling challenges many established truths about popular literary classics by presenting an analysis of sixty Korean variations of The Journey to the West, a set which includes novels and poems, as well as films, comics, paintings, and dance performances dating from the 14th century until today. In contrast to the typical assumption that literary classics like The Journey to the West are stable texts with a single original, Barbara Wall approaches The Journey to the West as a dynamic text comprised of all its variations. She argues that all the creators of such variations, from Korean scholars in the 14th century to “boy bands” like Seventeen in the 21st century, participate in the ongoing story world known as The Journey to the West. Wall employs literary and quantitative analysis, ample graphic visualizations, and in-depth descriptions of classroom games to find new ways to understand the dynamics of transmedia storytelling and popular engagement with story worlds. Her approach opens new frontiers of intertextual analysis to literary scholars and teachers of literature who seek contemporary methods of introducing world literature to new generations of students.

About the lecturer:

Barbara Wall is an assistant professor in Korean Studies at the University of Copenhagen. She has a BA in Japanese Studies and Classical Chinese from Heidelberg University, an MA in Confucian Studies from Sungkyungkwan University and a PhD in Korean Literature from Ruhr University Bochum. She is interested in the circulation, translation, and adaptation of literary narratives in and between Korea, Japan and China. Her first book The Dynamic Essence of Transmedia Storytelling: A Graphical Approach to The Journey to the West in Korea appeared in Brill’s East Asian Comparative Literature and Culture series in 2024.