Do Not Try to Bend the Spoon. There Is No Spoon: Korean Shamanism and Myth in ‘K-Pop Demon Hunters’

Speaker: Kim Bo-young, an award-winning South Korean science fiction writer. Recipient of Science and Technology Creative Fiction Novella Award of Korea, Grand Prize at the First Annual Korean SF Novel Award, and Grand Prize at the First Annual Korean SF Novella Award.

Moderator: Seoeun Choi, M.A. Student in the Department of East Asian Studies, Columbia University.

Bo-Young Kim is a leading South Korean science fiction writer whose work has profoundly influenced a generation of emerging authors since the early 2000s. She made her literary debut with “The Experience of Touch,” which won the inaugural Science and Technology Creative Fiction Novella Award of Korea in 2004. Her major literary honors include the Grand Prize at the First Annual Korean SF Novel Award for “The Seven Executioners” and the Grand Prize at the First Annual Korean SF Novella Award for “How Alike Are We.”

Kim’s short story “An Evolutionary Myth” was featured in the U.S. science fiction magazine Clarkesworld, and her English-language collection I’m Waiting for You and Other Stories was published by HarperCollins in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Her translated collection On the Origin of Species and Other Stories, published by Kaya Press, was nominated for a National Book Award, while Whale Snows Down was nominated for the SFF Rosetta Award.

Beyond literature, Kim has also worked in film and gaming. She recently served as a scenario advisor for Bong Joon-ho’s SF film Snowpiercer, and prior to her literary career, she worked as a video-game scenario writer and producer for the development team Garam and Baram.

In this visually rich and philosophically provocative lecture, acclaimed Korean SF writer Kim Bo-Young explores the deep currents of Korean shamanism, ghost lore, and myth that continue to shape contemporary Korean science fiction and popular culture—often in ways invisible to Western viewers. Drawing on her own National Book Award–nominated SF novels as well as the global Netflix hit K-Pop Demon Hunters, Kim shows how these traditions structure modern Korean storytelling.

From “evil ghosts” (ak-kwi) mistaken for demons to K-pop idols reimagined as modern-day shamans performing ritual exorcism through song and dance, Kim reveals how Korean ideas of spirit, body, and energy (gi) challenge Western mind–body dualism. Connecting The Matrix, Star Wars, and ancient Korean myths such as Paridegi, this talk reframes possession, haunting, and embodiment not as horror, but as transformation, continuity, and ethical connection.

.Bo-young Kim will be delivering her lecture “Do Not Try to Bend the Spoon. There Is No Spoon: Korean Shamanism and Myth in K-Pop Demon Hunters” on Friday, March 27 at 3PM

A must-see event for fans of K-pop, Korean culture, fantasy, science fiction, and global mythologies.

This event is co-hosted by the Center for Korean Research and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.

PLEASE NOTE: For non-Columbia guests, registration is required to access the Morningside campus 24 hours prior to the event. After registering you will receive an email with a QR code that must be presented along with a government-issued ID (your name must match exactly the name registered for the event) at either the 116th Street & Broadway or 116th Street & Amsterdam gates for entry. Please register using a unique email address (one email address per registrant) by 12:00 PM on Thursday, March 26 for campus access.

Names will be submitted for QR codes 1-2 days prior to the event and subsequently reviewed. Registrants will receive an email from CU Guest Access with the QR code before or on the day of the event.