Stephanie Choi

Stephanie Jiyun [Jee-yon] Choi is assistant professor of ethnomusicology in the College of Music. She earned a PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, an MA in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University and a BM in Korean music from Seoul National University. Before joining CU Boulder, she was a postdoctoral associate at the Asia Research Institute at the State University of New York at Buffalo, sponsored by the Academy of Korean Studies.

Choi’s research focuses on popular music culture, feminism and labor and the affective economy in South Korea. She is currently working on her first book project (tentatively titled “Branding Intimacy: Media, Labor, and Community in K-pop”), an ethnography that examines how K-pop has become one of the world’s largest entertainment industries through the digital circulation of intimacy.

Her work has been featured in several global media outlets, including The Daily Show, The New Yorker, Korea Herald, NBC News, Arirang News, Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Wall Street Journal and The Korea Times. She is president of the Association for Korean Music Research at the Society for Ethnomusicology.

Musicology