I have worked as a professor for almost 30 years at two Ivy League institutions -- the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University. Ivy League institutions epitomize the Ivory Tower. We imagine that professors and students discuss rarefied subjects while being disconnected to the reality on the ground.

However, I wholeheartedly reject this version of academia. Two weeks ago, I had the immense pleasure of organizing a K-pop conference at Yale University titled "K-pop Production and Consumption: Conversations among Industry Professionals, Social Scientists, and Humanists."

My co-organizer was Yale postdoctoral fellow Dr. Lee Won-seok, who happens to be a former drummer in the K-pop industry who worked with acts like Shinhwa and Lee Hyo-ri. The conference was sponsored by multiple units at Yale -- the Council on East Asian Studies to the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Kempf Fund at the MacMillan Center, and the Yale’s Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration. This is a sign of the relevance of K-pop to numerous academic centers at Yale.

My vision was to introduce academics who study K-pop to people that actually work in the industry. For the panelists, we welcomed RBW’s Kim Hyung-kyu, who helped to produce Beast, Mamamoo, Pentagon, G(I)-dle, Oneus, Onewe, Young Posse, and so forth. Next, we had Kim Su-bin, a former idol of the group Say Yes and current songwriter, producer, topliner and CEO of Aiming Music. He has produced almost 400 songs for groups such as Twice, EXO, Super Junior, SF9 and Astro. We also welcomed Dahae Choi, creative director at Hitfire Productions AB in Sweden, and who has an extensive career in music publishing and forming some of the first song camps. Finally, we welcomed Jay Kim, a former employee in PR at a major K-pop entertainment company and currently a K-pop journalist.

We invited them to participate along with academics in Sociology, Ethnomusicology, East Asian Studies, Korean Studies, Theatre Arts, English and Classics. We gathered at Yale University for two wonderful days, and everyone had a great time. What was so special was that everyone there was serious about K-pop -- we are all fans, producers and/or consumers of it. Also, we didn’t have to defend its importance to anyone at the conference. We all felt pure joy and happiness throughout the conference -- I don’t know if it was because we all loved music or if we just liked each other.

There were so many unique moments. First, we enjoyed welcome messages from five idols/groups including Say My Name, Purple Kiss, Young Posse, Jae-Joong of JYJ and Yonghoon of Onewe. These have been posted on YouTube if you’re interested. Faculty and students learned what it was like to be an idol and the rigorous testing and training that trainees endure. Who knew that trainees at one company had to write monthly book reports? We also learned about various methods for computing the allocation of song royalties.

Industry professionals seemed fascinated that professors and Ph.D. students were spending time studying K-pop. In the session, “Fandoms,” we heard about Korean versus international fandoms from professor Mathieu Berbiguier of Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Stephanie Choi of Suny Buffalo talked about how the activities of female fans are a direct response to gender inequities in Korea. We learned about performing materialization and affective labor from Professor Areum Jeong of Arizona State University. She also talked about fan meetings with Taeyong of NCT Dream.

In the session titled, “Sounds,” I talked about the link between K-pop and 1980s New Wave Music. Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Michigan Sunhong Kim, previously a professional "gugak" (traditional Korean music) musician, presented her paper on how Suga of BTS uses traditional Korean instrumentation and imagery in "Daechwita" as a commentary on military history during Park Chung-hee’s regime and beyond. We heard about the use of autotune and vocoders in Ateez songs from Professor Donna Kwon, an Ethnomusicology professor at the University of Kentucky.

The panel on “Past and Future” featured Dr. Yanxiao He of Tsinghua University whose work ties Classics to K-pop more broadly, and specifically to BTS’s “Dionysus.” We learned about how computational social scientists analyze data on social media platform X to examine the sway BTS carries in shaping the online conversation about discrimination against Asian Americans from Dr. AJ Alvero of Cornell University.

Next, we heard fascinating papers by professor Hye Won Kim of Kennesaw State University about the production of K-pop. She is unique in that she was a pop singer and now a professor. Ph.D. candidate Lee So-yoon from The University of Chicago talked about the proliferation of hagwons that offer credentialing to adults who want to work in the K-pop industry -- not as idols, but in production and support roles.

Finally, we learned about K-pop markets. Professor Kim Sung-min of Hokkaido University described the reception of K-pop in Japan and how it reflects Japan-Korea relations. Professor Youjeong Oh of the University of Texas, Austin, described how tourism based on BTS has brought fans to Korea.

One of the most memorable highlights was during our last reception, where we all participated in a sing-a-long. Hye Won Kim (professionally known as Hey) performed her hit song, “Je T’aime” with Kim Hyung-kyu; Kim Su-bin and Kim Hyung-kyu performed a “freestyle” song -- meaning that they made it up on the spot. Finally, the Korean participants sang “Forever with You” by Lee Moon-sae. Hye Won Kim recorded it and sent it to Lee (apparently they are friends!) on the spot. Shockingly, he responded to her and expressed his happiness at seeing it. I tried to explain to my American friends this was as if we sang “Candle in the Wind” at a party and then someone at the party who is a friend of Elton John’s texts the video to him, and then he immediately responds. This was truly surreal and magical.

If we think of all the groups who were mentioned during the conference or played during our lunch breaks, I think we covered all the generations from Seo Taiji, H.O.T., S.E.S., 2NE1, Girls Generation, Beast, TVXQ, Super Junior, Big Bang, EXO, BTS, GOT7, Twice, iKON, Seventeen, Pentagon, Brave Girls, NCT 127, Ateez, Stray Kids, G(I)-dle, TXT, Enhyphen, NewJeans, Zerobaseone, and Young Posse. Still, how memorable is it that we ended with a song by Lee Moon-sae, who debuted in 1978. Not bad for a two-day conference in Connecticut, right?

Grace Kao

Grace Kao is an IBM professor of sociology and professor of ethnicity, race and migration at Yale University. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. -- Ed.