16. The Soft Power of the Korean Wave (BTS Chapter 10)

In this episode, we consider two smaller chapters from Adrian Besley's 'Fully Revised & Updated' book from 2020. We pick up (more or less) where we left off in episode 6, looking at the next ‘chapters’ in BTS’s early history (from 2014 to 2015).

This episode features another chapter from the 2019 book by Jeeheng Lee (BTS & ARMY Culture). Dr. Lee's chapter on ‘Voting Culture’ provides a behind-the-scenes look at ARMY’s involvement with votes-based awards in the music industry.

The episode focuses on one of the 5 chapters/essays devoted to BTS in this brand new book from Routledge. The three pop culture aspects explored in the edited work are: the 2019 movie Parasite, K-Drama, and BTS.

This week, the 'BTS Bookworm' considers Section 4 of Cha Minju's book, Philosophizing About BTS. The section focuses on BTS + Art + Philosophy.

The chapter-length focus of this episode is from Katy Sprinkel's 2021 book, BTS: One. The two back-to-back chapters highlight the group's success in business terms & their use of that success to support important causes & make the world a better place.

The focus of this episode is chapter 14 from Tamar Herman's 2020 book,  BTS: Blood, Sweat & Tears. It's a chapter that explores BTS's social media efforts (e.g., Twitter, YouTube, V Live) & how those efforts have helped the group become the global sensation they are today.

In this episode, we look at two back-to-back chapters from Dianne Pineda-Kim's 2020 'BTS Bible.' The chapters provide a wonderful look at the pop/cultural context out of which BTS was born & gives credit (where credit is due) to Big Hit's Bang Si-hyuk for his unique vision.

The focus of the episode is on Marc Shapiro's 2018 book, Burn the Stage: BTS and the Rise of Korean Boy Bands. Since the chapters are short, we're looking at two...both of which focus on BTS before they were officially a group.

To celebrate the 10th episode, the 'BTS Bookworm' looks at one member of the group (Jimin) through the lens of 3 different book chapters. The books include Cara Stevens' BTS: Rise of Bangtan (2018), Katy Sprinkel's The Big Book of BTS (2019), and Adrian Besley's BTS: Icons of K-Pop (2020).

This episode focuses on Katy Sprinkel's 2019 book, specifically her chapter all about ARMY!