Mark Plaice
Gangland Poetics: The Production of Space in South Korean Gangster Films 1961-2011
Mark is currently in his second year and working through the early stages of his research project under the supervision of Professor Chris Berry.
His project seeks to understand how spatial relationships created in filmic texts are articulated across and beyond national and transnational generic intertexts to produce dynamic associations of place and cinematic geographies. Such spatial imaginaries mediate in complex ways the cultural geographies through which the subject can be situated.
He is particularly interested in the spaces of ‘gangland’ in South Korean film and the way they have changed in reaction to the huge socio-economic and cultural transformations that South Korea has undergone over the last sixty years. Gangland opens up a transgressive space beyond the reach of the governmentalites of Modernity, and in parallel to cinema, affords visibility to what would be hidden. As a parallel spatiality, it operates according to its own rules, is home to the outcast or the outsider, and thus abounds with possibilities for social and political critique. Moreover, gangster films of various sorts have been an enduring and representative feature of South Korean cinema and continue to command both box office returns and critical acclaim.
His current research is funded by a Graduate Studies Fellowship from the Korea Foundation, and his MA in Korean Studies was partially funded by a language training fellowship from the Academy of Korean Studies.
Research interests include: South Korean Cinema, South Korean Gangster Films, Transnational Gangster Films, East Asian Cinema, Korean (Visual) Cultural Studies, Space and Place in Film, North Koreans in South Korean Film, ‘Foreigners’ in South Korean Film.
Conference papers
Methodologies for the Genre Film Corpus: Constructing Complex Intertextual Diachronic Objects for Research. Presented at the LSE/Goldsmiths/Westminster Media & Communications joint Post Graduate Symposium, March 12th 2011.
Representations of North Koreans in South Korean Action Film: Secret Reunion and A Better Tomorrow. Presented at the MeCCSA Post Graduate Students’ Conference, Bournemouth, July 2-3rd 2011
Education
Greenwich University, 1991 BA(Hons) Humanities
Yonsei University, 2002 MBA International Business Studies
SOAS, University of London, 2008 MA Korean Studies
Memberships
AKSE (The Association for Korean Studies in Europe)
MeCCSA (Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association)
NECS (European Network for Cinema and Cultural Studies)
LAPCSF (London Asia Pacific Cultural Studies Forum)
Languages
English – Native
Korean – Fairly Fluent
Japanese – Basic