Aspects of Korean Humor 3600-7-KO5-PK2

Session 1 – Canned Jokes in Korea (1): Basics
What is yumeo? And what exactly is the concept of the “canned joke” in the Korean context? As often in cultural studies, the attempt to pin things down through definitions reveals fuzziness and opens a box of thought-provoking problems. While joke collections are easy to find, actual joke-telling seems curiously absent. This mismatch between textual abundance and performative invisibility also points to something broader: the role of “humor” (in the wider sense) within Korean society and cultural life.

Session 2 – Canned Jokes in Korea (2): Series without Authors
This session turns to what makes yumeo sirijeu properly serial: recurring figures like Sa O-Jeong or Mandeuk appear in clusters of jokes ranging from a handful to hundreds. We look at how these series function, how they circulated, and how their emergence has been explained — both technically (how does a series come to cohere?) and historically (what does a particular series reflect about its time?).

Session 3 – Canned Jokes in Korea (3): Retro and Newtro Yumeo
The final session is devoted to recent modes of joke recycling — be it under the label online nostalgia, be it called ajae gaegeu. Well-known joke material resurfaces in dramas, films, but also in Korean language classes curated by up-to-date K-teachers. Is the old material reframed or is it simply replayed? What kinds of patterns can be observed?

Session 4 – Translanguaging Puns
Language learners are rarely encouraged to produce jokes. Yet their non-native perspective fosters metalinguistic awareness and makes them predestined for puns. To allow this, one must relax the boundaries of the “meaningful” and go beyond the ideal of “natural” communication. A case in point is the Proud Korean from the KBS Gag Concert, whose mondegreens and malapropisms can be seen as blueprints that would deserve more space in the classroom.