WGST Student Assistant Grace Ariss recently sat down with new WGST Assistant Professor Dr. Min Ji Kang to discuss Dr. Kang’s educational and research background, her areas of interest, and where she hopes to take her research and teaching in the future. Dr. Min Ji Kang is a scholar and teacher of women’s and gender studies, comparative ethics studies, and contemporary literature and culture. Her research examines how literature, museums, popular music, and digital media represent gendered violence, racialized histories, cultural memory, and resistance. Her research project, Shared Narratives of Defiance, places representations of Korean “comfort women” and African American enslaved women into comparative conversation.

Her related scholarship examines Asian American and African American literature, public memory, postcolonial feminism, and the representation of historically marginalized women. Dr. Kang’s current research also focuses on gender, race, and technology in popular culture. She is the editor of The K-pop Reader: Gender and Technology in Korean Pop Music, under contract with Routledge. The collection investigates how technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual performance, social media, and digital production shape gender, identity, labor, and fandom within K-pop. Her other scholarship addresses Afro-Asian connection in K-pop and hip-hop, feminist utopias, adaption, and racial politics in popular media, and the intersections of Asian American and African American cultural production. Dr. Kang encourages students to connect gender and critical race theories with literature, popular culture, media, and their everyday experiences. Her teaching emphasizes interdisciplinary inquiry, thoughtful discussion, and helping students recognize how culture can both reinforce and challenge structures of power.  

Your research involves how social media, pop music, and culture typify cultural, racial, and gendered histories of resistance and memory. Can you tell me more about that?  

I started off with an English literature background, and I continued that work into graduate school with an English Literature PhD program. I was interested in looking at women’s experiences, but became really intrigued by women’s resistance within systems of slavery. My focus became looking at systems of slavery in the U.S and learning more about women’s resistance in East Asia and parts of Europe, specifically through the “comfort-woman” system. A history not talked about enough, it’s a system of sexual enslavement by colonial Japan consisting of women across East and Southeast Asia, and parts of the Netherlands during World War II. It was something I felt wasn’t discussed in terms of Western education, provoking my interest in women’s resistance and narratives specifically. When I visited museums about enslavement in South Korea and the U.S., I began tracing these forms of resistance to public forums. I feel like public spaces, such as museums and social media, are so interesting because they speak to a broader audience and invite people into conversation; providing an audience around the world with information and a space to learn and talk about things like race, gender, and social issues.  

Do you see more of an exchange of dialogue regarding global issues with the rise of social media? 

I think social media, in a lot of ways, has opened our eyes to different issues happening across the world. There are plenty of conversations going on in other countries that influence the thinking that’s going on here, allowing us other avenues of thinking about bodily autonomy and women’s issues. It has permitted us to think about the trends in gender studies and feminist thinking. Looking at the media, especially in parts of East Asia, there’s been considerable backlash against feminism because of various socio-political issues. There’s this political idea that women are advancing in society that, in turn, is creating more issues in terms of equal pay, family leave, and gender dynamics - resulting in a lot of men feeling disadvantaged socially and economically. Coupled with the older generation who are starting to speak out about these injustices and teach their children about gender dynamics, this creates tension and a shift in society. Having the opportunity to go to South Korea and talk to university students about these ideas, I was able to examine the types of rhetoric and stigmas around feminism and how to rethink them. I found that those same misconceptions can be seen by people in America too, so opening that space for dialogue through social media has granted us the ability to better understand each other. 

You earned a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Florida. What are some key takeaways you have from that program? 

The gender studies certificate was influential to me when I was in studying English and reading texts that involved gender theory, because it gave me the frameworks and the vocabulary to start articulating what I was seeing. It wasn’t until I started my gender studies certification that I began taking courses on feminist theory and cultivated my interests in women of color, third world women’s literature, and global feminist thought. Thinking about feminist theory or women’s and gender studies from a globalized perspective, one meaningful takeaway I captured was how my work could influence the public and give back to the community. 

What prompted your interest in the implications of culture and music in relation to WGST? 

My interest in music and pop culture progressed because I wanted to not only look at cross-cultural interactions, but how it’s continuing to shape our media and pop culture. I am a musician and grew up playing music, so I became interested in how music allows people to come together but also think about current issues and what’s going on in society. When I saw this huge rise of K-pop, from going to the grocery store and hearing a K-pop song or hearing it on the radio, it became a huge experience for me and fostered my curiosity in how different cultures are responding to K-pop. And further how K-pop has also been influenced by different music cultures, like hip-hop, Latin, and R&B. Ultimately, perpetuating the idea that music is a space where different cultural interactions occur, and gender dynamics are seen, reinforced, and resisted in some ways. For example, EJAE, most well-known for K-Pop Demon Hunters, had a song that was highlighted in the World Cup, showcasing what cross-cultural interactions can happen through music. 

What methodology do you use while conducting research? Have you encountered any surprising or unexpected results? 

I use different methods, but literary studies and close reading of texts are where my research stems from. I’ve been looking at more transnational texts, specifically Korean. It’s interesting because I can read Korean and understand it, but when translating to an English audience and additionally translating the cultural norms, it has allowed me to think about Korean culture from outsider’s standpoint. In addition, I use a lot of lyrical and media analysis (i.e. watching music videos and looking at concert venues) when studying pop culture. Recently, I was able to go on a research trip to KCON in Los Angeles to observe how the exchange of Korean music, food, and beauty brought such a diverse group together. Doing field research where I was immersed in these cross-cultural dynamics, uncovering what makes for this huge gravitation towards Korean culture and how it influences things like gender norms and beauty standards, was really cool.  

You’re the editor of The K-pop Reader: Gender and Technology in Korean Pop Music, and investigate how technologies, such as artificial intelligence, further gender and identity within the K-pop fandom. What are some of the influential ways you have witnessed fandom change or manifest as A.I. grows in popularity?  

I think A.I. and technology are changing the landscape of pop culture. We now have an abundance of different parasocial relationships to observe between fan and artists, as well as various virtual K-pop groups. I believe these artists are changing the definition of what a K-pop artist looks like or even what constitutes human. That’s what these virtual groups are challenging because we’re meant to see them as human and accept them as artists, but at the same time, you can see that they are also virtual. It establishes these interesting questions of what makes them human, are these artists human enough, and are there evident differences that make them feel more like technology. I think there are going to be different challenges of virtual artists trying to emulate human-like qualities while maintaining this polished K-pop persona.  

Within the women’s and gender studies realm, A.I has been used mainstream in K-pop to promote gender norms. The body types we see in these virtual groups are very thin, lighter skinned, with very prominent features - characteristics often praised in Korean society. Rozy Oh exemplifies this because her creation was the result of a survey of young Koreans depicting what makes for the most appealing image of a woman. The fact that they’re getting feedback from society in terms of defining beauty, and subsequently creating that image, directly reflects the current beauty standards in Korean culture. Consequently, these projections of beauty contribute to the growing number of Koreans who get plastic surgery. Moreover, there is a lot of discourse revolving around the concept of aging. With a growing presence of virtual artists who don’t appear to age, there’s a lot of judgement potentially reinforcing K-pop artists to feel like they age out of the industry once they reach a certain age.  

Can you tell me more about the comparative “comfort panel” you organized at the 2026 MLA Convention?  

The MLA is the largest literary conference in America that brings together literary studies scholars from all over the world. At the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S. Conference, I was fortunate enough to meet someone who worked in “comfort woman” literature as well and we were able to maintain our connection to create this panel. We successfully hosted scholars from across the world, allowing us to examine the issue of “comfort women,” issues of care, and the ethics of representation. It was a memorable experience to not only put together the panel but also engage in dialogue with so many different international scholars who were thinking about this issue collaboratively. I definitely think my perspective broadened because these scholars brought up different artists I hadn’t heard of, or they were thinking about texts I’ve read in a different light, largely because of their theoretical frameworks. It also informed my own research because I’m now able to bring this transnational perspective to the issue of comfort women.  

You’ve built a course that examines the Afro-Asian cultural intersections in K-pop, hip-hop, and R&B music. What are some of the most rewarding aspects of teaching such an interdisciplinary course? How have students expressed themselves or expanded their intersectional thinking after taking your course?  

The K-pop, hip-hop, and R&B course was definitely one of my favorite courses to teach. It brought together so many different students from various backgrounds and disciplines, and helped to facilitate dialogue around gender, race, representation, and culture with a common interest in music. Some of the students were extremely interested in K-pop and had little background in hip-hop or were knowledgeable about R&B but had no experience with K-pop. Everyone brought their own interests and backgrounds they were able to speak to and raise questions about the cultural interactions we see between genres. They began tracing cross-cultural connections, gender dynamics, and issues of appropriation within pop culture. At the end of the semester, I have students create their own remixes, whether that be through music or lyrics. It ends up being this beautiful collaboration of things that we talked about in the class, like gender and racial dynamics and how it pertains to their own lives. The goal of the class was to be able to think about culture and how our own identities aren’t in this isolated vacuum; they’re constantly interplaying with other people and cultures. To live in this multicultural, globalized society, we must learn how to understand other cultures and do it in a responsible and ethical way. So having students think consciously about how they represent different cultures and different genders through the creation of meaningful projects was such a huge highlight to my teaching. 

What course are you most excited to teach here at USC?  

Right now, I am really excited to teach Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies because that course has brought together so many different students of various disciplines. I love hearing their perspectives and how WGST can be used and thought about in such diverse career paths and interests. It’s also really cool to talk about the connection between theoretical frameworks and lived experiences.  In the future I'm interested in teaching a course about gender and technology, because that has been at the forefront of my own research and thinking about gender and race. Thinking about how technology has become such a core proponent of our lives, I’d like to interrogate how it has impacted gender norms. Specifically, how V.R. and A.I allow for gender swapping or fluidity and are reinforcing gender and race dynamics. I would also love to bring the K-pop, hip-hop, and R&B course to USC to spark conversations about cross-cultural interactions within the Music Department and the African American Studies Department.