Han

Dr. Benjamin Min Han

Associate Professor, Entertainment and Media Studies
Office: Journalism Building, Room 101-F

About: Dr. Han’s research focuses on global media, race and ethnicity, Korean popular culture, and the cultural intersections between East Asia and Latin America.

View Curriculum Vitae

Education

Ph.D., Cinema Studies, New York University
M.A., Cinema-Television, University of Southern California
B.S., Radio-TV-Film, University of Texas at Austin

Research Interests and Activities

Dr. Han’s research focuses on television studies, race and media, and global media. His intellectual interests in these three areas stem from his personal experiences as a diasporic itinerant living in South Korea, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Indonesia, and the United States. His research thus aims to explore the cultural intersections between Korea and Latin America through a transpacific examination of media and cultural flows despite the lack of shared cultural, linguistic, and geographical affinities. More specifically, his scholarship seeks to challenge the West-East and Black-White binaries that have informed studies of race and global media. His first book, Beyond the Black and White TV: Asian and Latin American Spectacle in Cold War America (Rutgers University Press, 2020), moves beyond the nation-centric model of studying U.S. television to examine its transnational connections with Korea, Cuba, and Hawaii through the circulation of Asian and Latin American performers on popular variety TV shows. Continuing his research inquiry into Asia-Latin America, his current book project, Reckoning with the World: South Korean and the Latin American Imaginary, examines how Korean TV dramas, reality TV shows, and travel documentaries formulate and exploit a monolithic imaginary of the Caribbean and Latin America through the lens of modernity. His articles have been published in the International Journal of Communication, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Television & New Media, Pacific Historical Review, and Post45.

Experience

Prior to joining Grady College, Dr. Han taught at Tulane University in New Orleans. He teaches Entertainment Media Industries and Global Media Industries, among other courses at Grady College.

Office: Journalism Building, Room 101-F