Professor Kyunghee Pyun, History of Art, gave a lecture at the University of California, Irvine, on October 8, on an invitation from the Center for Critical Korean Studies. The lecture, titled “Designing City of Lights: Neon Crosses and Religiosity in South Korea,” discussed how contemporary design has been employed to enhance religiosity in South Korean Protestant churches. It also contemplates on how materiality is negotiated and reconciled in the intersectionality of religiosity and technology. Professor Pyun emphasized that megachurches in South Korea, like those in the United States, are equipped with most advanced audio-visual technology and its products. An earlier version of this paper was given at the Bard Graduate Center in New York.
As an award-winning scholar of design history and material culture, Pyun has received much attention from the history of technology, business history, and consumer culture. In this public lecture, Professor Pyun emphasized how religiosity has cultivated access to and benefits from technology and design in fast-advancing modernity of South Korea. For the audiences in Southern California, Professor Pyun noted that for some viewers, Korean neon signs are reminiscent of motels in Las Vegas, Googie architecture in Los Angeles, or theaters on Broadway in New York.
Professor Pyun has been giving talks around the country to promote her book Dress History of Korea: Critical Perspectives on Primary Sources published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2023. This invitation was related to her scholarship of Korean material culture.