Michael Fuhr is Assistant Professor at University of Hildesheim, Center for World Music - Ethnomusicology, Germany.

1. Introduction: Rising K-Pop, Pursuing the Hyphen Part I: Configuring K-Pop: Histories and Production 2. Inventing Korean Popular Music: Historical Formations and Genres (1885-2000) 3. Producing the Global Imaginary: A K-Pop Tropology Part II: Complicating K-Pop: Flows, Asymmetries, and Transformations 4. Temporal Asymmetries: Music, Time, and the Nation-State 5. Spatial Asymmetries: Imaginary Places in the Transnational Production of K-Pop 6. Asymmetries of Mobility: Immigrant Stars and the Conjuncture of Patriotism, Anti-American Sentiment, and Cyberculture 7. Conclusion: "Oppan, Korean Style!": An Imaginary Horse Ride around the Globe

This book examines the globalization of contemporary South Korean idol pop music and its intersections with political, economic, and cultural transformations. It examines transnational flows, asymmetrical power relations, and the imaginary "other" in K-Pop production and consumption, visiting stars, songs, and videos. Fuhr reveals how K-Pop is deployed for strategies of national identity construction in connection with Korean cultural politics, transnational music production circuits, and the mobility of immigrant pop idols. Widening the regional scope of popular music studies, this book will be of interest to East Asian popular culture, music globalization, and cultural anthropology.