In this course we will study Korean films to think about expressions of and contemporary uses of emotion. We will consider how these cinematic texts serve as a site for theorizing and historicizing emotion in modern Korea. In particular, we will explore the most extreme, but also the most basic, human emotions such as fear, pain, love, and sadness. The course will be divided into four sections: Korean horror films where we will ask if there is an aesthetics of fear; Pak Ch’anwook’s vengeance trilogy to explore psychosis and madness; Kim Kiduk’s controversial films to problematize love, affection, and jealousy; and the melodrama genre to interrogate whether or not we can indeed name a unique Korean emotion called han (often translated as extreme sorrow or bitterness). In addition, throughout the course we will ask how Korean films produce versions of emotional life that address various aspects of Korean history, class, gender, sexuality, and culture. Films will be supplemented with theory, history, and popular culture texts and draw on writings by both Eastern and Western thinkers such as Mencius, Yi Sang, Foucault, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty among others.