EastCon analyzes contemporary East Asian popular culture

The first Princeton University East Asian Undergraduate Conference, abbreviated as EastCon, took place this weekend on April 26–27. The conference, which was held primarily in Lewis Library, featured 19 presenters and an assortment of events, including panels, workshop activities, an ice cream social and a keynote speech by the CEO of Next Entertainment World, Woo Taek Kim.

The conference theme was “Beyond Gangnam Style: K-Pop and the Rise of Asian Pop Music.” The event’s four panels — Exotic Economics and New Cultures, Technology and Digital Mediums, Transnationalism, and Gender — were conducted primarily by undergraduate students from universities nationwide who have conducted research on East Asian popular culture. Other panelists included a Ph.D. student from the University of Chicago and an undergraduate student from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

“It’s really satisfying to be among both scholars and practitioners. That’s a very sophisticated model of what a conference should be like,” writing program professor Marion Wrenn, who spoke at EastCon, said. “Not just scholars talking about their research, but also having experts in the field who actually practice the production of culture talk about their work.”

Attendance numbers at each event peaked at around 60–70 and at all times, at least 30 people were present, according to Swetha Doppalapudi ’16, one of the event’s organizers.

“We were very pleased with the turnout, considering it’s the first conference of this kind to happen at this school,” Doppalapudi said.

The conference will be held again next year, according to Doppalapudi, who said that based on this year’s conference, there will be some adjustments made.

“Our keynote speaker actually implied that he would come back with a better act. He was like, ‘Oh, I was on the flight here and I was right next to Psy and I was talking to him and I was like “You should come down for this!” and he was like, “No, I’m kind of busy, but if you tell me like four months in advance I can get you someone,” ’ so we’re definitely going to do this again,” Doppalapudi explained.

A lot of advertising for the event was done at other schools, Doppalapudi said, but not much was directed towards getting Princeton students to attend the event. Thus, a goal for next year’s conference is to expand the visibility of the conference and get more of the undergraduates on campus to attend, explained Sarah Pak ’15, co-president of EastCon.

Next year’s goal is to have 100 people — 20 presenters and 80 undergraduates — attend EastCon, which would require a larger venue, Pak said.

EastCon’s organizers spent most of its $1,900 in University funding on the event this year.

“I think we’ve got like $200 left, and it’s probably going to go to Building Services for cleaning fees,” Julia Nelson ’15, another of the event’s organizers, said.

Expanding the event would not cause costs to rise heavily, however, according to Pak.

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“Most of it’s going to be food because we’re not paying for the presenters to come, but if we’re going to get a lot of undergrads on campus to come, they have their own meal swipes,” Pak said. “We’ll have a little more food, but it won’t be like we’re actually going to feed 100 people.”

To save money this year, the event organizers had hosts use their guest swipes for non-University students, and the Forbes College Director of Studies Patrick Caddeau provided 19 meal passes to help alleviate food costs.

“The first year’s really the hardest … but I think know that now we’ve demonstrated that this is an event that can happen, and it went successfully by all the metrics that we set for ourselves as an organization,” Pak said.