‘Gangnam Style’ by the Yard
Every now and then a song sweeps the world, catapulting its singer into the stratosphere of super-fame. “Gangnam Style” is that kind of phenomenon, performed by South Korean’s Park Jae-sang, better known to nearly 1.6 billion YouTube viewers (the most ever) as Psy. On Thursday the Korea Institute at Harvard University sponsored “A Conversation with Psy” for a packed audience of Harvard students, staff, and faculty and the international press at Memorial Church, in a session that was also live-streamed online. The event was introduced by Carter J. Eckert, the Yoon Se Young Professor of Korean History. Slipping on a pair of sunglasses, à la Psy’s trademark style, Eckert suggested that Harvard hasn’t been so close to cool since Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1838 speech on transcendentalism. Alexander Zahlten, assistant professor of East Asian languages and civilizations, put “Gangnam Style” into the context of the investments Asian countries are making in exporting their cultures,...