Welcome to my thesis homepage!
My name is Jackson Wright. I am a graduate student at the University of Texas-Austin and this SCALAR web platform is dedicated to my research regarding Korean American cinema and representations of transnationality. This platform is not designed to create linear pathways. I want you to be able to be presented with a guided path but also have the opportunity to veer off-course, should you be interested in one topic over another.
This project will intervene with Asian American cinema history, stereotypes regarding Asian Americans in media, and constructions of masculinity by Korean Americans. In order to materialize this project, I will be conducting a star study of actors John Cho and Steven Yeun in the films Columbus (dir. Kogonada, 2017) and Burning (dir. Lee Chang-dong, 2017). Their careers, star images, and performances within the films will be located within vectors of transnationality and interpolations with dominant masculinity. Please view the Glossary for term definitions and uses.
Everything that will be written, analyzed, or designed on this SCALAR platform will be done so through my personal decision-making and worldview. As a male Korean adoptee, I have generated my own lived experiences and real-world knowledge that affects everything from font choice to discursive language. In conjunction with academic literature, I seek to understand star images and film texts in a way that makes sense to me. I do not seek to proclaim any universal conclusion nor imply that there are stability with any concepts I talk about in this project.
Most of all, I simply want to fill a gap in scholarship regarding Korean American diaspora and transnationality. All I hope is that this platform may inspire anyone, regardless of their association or affiliation with universities or academia, and serve as one way to prompt a larger discussion of the role media plays in transnational understandings.
This page has paths:
- hello Jackson Wright
