English Department Faculty
Christina Klein
Professor
Christina Klein
Ph.D.
Contact
Stokes Hall S479
Telephone: 617-552-3743
Email: kleinc@bc.edu
Education
- B.A., Wesleyan University
- Ph.D., Yale University
Expertise
- Korea
- Film, Music, & Popular Culture
Department
Biography
Christina Klein’s research focuses on Korean cinema and on America’s cultural encounters with Asia during the Cold War. She earned her B.A. in Film Studies from Wesleyan and her Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale. She teaches courses in American Studies methodology, Korean and contemporary Asian cinemas, Hollywood cinema, and American literature. She is the Director of the American Studies Program, Director of the Literature Core Program, and member of the Asian Studies Program steering committee. She is also a research associate at Harvard's Institute of Korean Studies.
Her latest book is Cold War Cosmopolitanism: Period Style in 1950s Korean Cinema (2020). It explores how the waging of the Cold War in Asia shaped postwar Korean film style, especially the work of director Han Hyung-mo. Her first book, Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945–1961 (2003), examines popular American representations of Asia in relation to U.S. foreign policy. Her articles and reviews have been published in academic journals across numerous disciplines.
Prof. Klein regularly shares her research with audiences outside the academy. Her critical journalism on contemporary cinema has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The South China Morning Post, The Korea Herald, and the Calcutta Telegraph. She has presented workshops on Cold War history for high school teachers via the National Humanities Center and the Chicago Humanities Council, and delivered public lectures on Asian cinema at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She has discussed martial arts films and Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals on BBC radio, Chicago Public Radio, and Canadian radio.
Prof. Klein was a member of the “Beyond the Korean War Project” (2011-2016), an international cultural history research project funded by the Academy of Korean Studies. She has received fellowships from Harvard’s Charles Warren Center for the Study of American History in 1999-2000 and 2001-2002 and was the Mitsui Career Development Professor at MIT (2003-2005), where she taught before coming to Boston College.
Publications
Book
- Cold War Cosmopolitanism: Period Style in 1950s Korean Cinema (University of California, 2020)
- Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961
(University of California, 2020)
Articles and Book Chapters
- “Madame Freedom (1956): Spectatorship and the Modern Woman,” in Rediscovering Korean Cinema (University of Michigan Press, 2019): 118-131.
- “Cold War Cosmopolitanism: The Asia Foundation and 1950s Korean Cinema,” Journal of Korean Studies 22.2 (2017) 281-316.
- “The AFKN Nexus: U.S. Military Broadcasting and New Korean Cinema,” Transnational Cinemas 3.1 (2012): 19-39.
- "The American Horror Film? Globalization and Transnational U.S.-Asian Genres," chapter in edited collection; American Horror Film: The Genre at the Turn of the Millennium, ed. Steffen Hantke, (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2010).
- "Why American Studies Needs to Think About Korean Cinema, or Transnational Genres in the Films of Bong Joon-ho," American Quarterly 60.4 (2008): 871-898.
- "Kung Fu Hustle: Transnational Production and the Global Chinese-Language Film,"Journal of Chinese Cinemas 1.3 (2007) 189-208.
- "Martial Arts and the Globalization of U.S. and Asian Film Industries," Comparative American Studies 2.3 (2004) 360-384.
- “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: A Diasporic Reading,” Cinema Journal, 43.4 (2004): 18-42.
- “Transnational Conversations: A Web Pedagogy,” with Jeffrey Partridge, Academic Exchange Quarterly 7.1 (Spring 2003): 282-286.
- "The King and I: Modernization as Cultural Transformation," in Staging Growth:Modernization, Development, and the Globalization of the Cold War, eds. David Engerman, Nils Gilman, Mark Haefele, Michael Latham. (University of Massachusetts Press, 2003): 129-162.
- "The Sentimental Culture of Global Integration," the minnesota review No. 55-57 (2002): 153-166.
- "Family Ties and Political Obligation: The Discourse of Adoption and the Cold War Commitment to Asia," Cold War Constructions: The Political Culture of United States Imperialism, 1945-1964, ed. Christian Appy. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000): 35-66.
- "Syudan Anzenhosho no Kuwadate: Reisen no Sokan tositeno Osama to Watashi," (Japanese translation of "'Shall We Dance?': Staging Collective Security") Doshisha Amerika Kenkyu / Doshisha American Studies No. 34 (1998): 91-98. (Published by the Center for American Studies at Doshisha University, Japan)
- "'Everything of interest in the late Pine Ridge War are held by us for sale': Popular Culture and Wounded Knee," Western Historical Quarterly ;25.1 (1994): 45-68.
Publications – Critical Journalism
- “Is ‘Kung Fu Hustle’ Un-American?” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2005.
- "'Copywood' No Longer," YaleGlobal Online, published by the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, October 12, 2004; reprinted South China Morning Post (Hong Kong).
- "Why Does Hollywood Dominate US Cinemas?," YaleGlobal Online, August 17, 2004; reprinted International Herald Tribune; South China Morning Post (Hong Kong); Statesman (Calcutta, India).
- "The Hollowing-Out of Hollywood," YaleGlobal Online, April 30, 2004; reprintedSingapore Straits Times (Singapore); Korea Herald (Seoul); Outlook (India).
- "The Asia Factor in Global Hollywood," YaleGlobal Online, March 2003; reprinted The Telegraph (Calcutta, India).
- “When Chinese Martial Arts Flies Through the Global Box Office,” YaleGlobal Online, December 2002; reprinted South China Morning Post (Hong Kong).
Video:
- “Cold War Cosmopolitan: Han Hyung-Mo & Korean Cinema of the 1950s,” The Korea Society
- “Soh Jaipil Lecture Series,” George Washington University Institute for Korean Studies
- “Recent Books in Korean Studies Colloquium,” University of California, Irvine, Center for Critical Korean Studies
- “Symposium & Retrospective: Ang Lee and the Art of Transnational Cinema,” Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University
Podcast:
- "Transnational U.S.-Asian Cinema: The Case of Tekkon Kinkreet," Comparative Media Studies Program, MIT