JASON BARKER


Professor of Global Communication at Kyung Hee University


study in 2024

Undergraduate classes in cinema, animation, globalisation, storytelling, and cyberspace



Jason's CV

I am a British film director, novelist and translator. I have published essays in the New York Times, LA Review of Books, diacritics, Meanjin, angelaki, animation...


Graduate study

Graduate and post-graduate classes


study in 2024


Choose the following undergraduate classes in 2024-2

Animation & Contemporary Culture / 애니메이션과현대문화 ELC25400Understanding the history and visual arts of animation in Hollywood, Japan, Korea and Europe. There is no mid-term or final examination for this class.할리우드, 일본, 한국, 유럽 애니메이션의 역사와 시각 예술을 알아본다. 본 수업은 중간고사나 기말고사를 치르지 않는다.Credits: 3Professor: Jason BarkerLocation: Kyung Hee University, College of Foreign Language & Literature, Global CampusStart/end date: 1 September/20 December 2024This class is taught in EnglishNote: study arrangements may be possible for Exchange Students who are unable to attend the Global Campus in personFor all enquiries please contact Professor Jason Barker:
039716 [at] khu.ac.kr


Cyberspace & Culture / 사이버 공간과 문화 ELC34100A short history of cyberspace and the technologies and software applications that make it possible. For students with an interest in science fiction and creative thinking. There is no mid-term or final examination for this class.사이버 공간의 역사와 그것을 가능하게 하는 기술 및 소프트웨어 응용 프로그램에 대한 간단한 역사. 과학 소설과 창의적 사고에 관심이 있는 학생들을 위한 것입니다. 본 수업은 중간고사나 기말고사를 치르지 않는다.Credits: 3Professor: Jason BarkerLocation: Kyung Hee University, College of Foreign Language & Literature, Global CampusStart/end date: 1 September/20 December 2024This class is taught in EnglishNote: study arrangements may be possible for Exchange Students who are unable to attend the Global Campus in personFor all enquiries please contact Professor Jason Barker:
039716 [at] khu.ac.kr


jason's cv


I am author of the children's illustrated novel Justine & Jacquie (forthcoming), the novel Marx Returns (2018) and writer-director and co-producer of the German documentary Marx Reloaded (2011).I am interested in all forms of creative and critical writing and have published essays in the New York Times, Le Monde diplomatique, angelaki, animation, Meanjin and edited diacritics, Filozofski vestnik and the LA Review of Books. I am the translator of Alain Badiou's Metapolitics (2005) and author of Alain Badiou: A Critical Introduction (2002), the first book-length study of Badiou's philosophy to appear in any language.


graduate study


Study for a masters degree in the Department of British & American Language and Culture (Graduate School), Global Campus, Kyung Hee University

Marxism and Literature / 맑시즘과 문학 ELC73200Professor: Jason Barker (with Ray Brassier)Credits: 3Karl Marx is no more acknowledged as a writer of prose than Marxism is as literature. Where their literary merits are remarked upon the question of "style" dominates, as if the appearance of spectres, vampires and were-wolves in Marx's texts, and his appeal to classical sources from Homer to Dante, were the mere ornament of an otherwise scientific enterprise. In this class we attempt to bridge the gap between fiction and non-fiction, literature and science, creative and critical writing in both Marx's own works as well as "Marxist" (including pre- and post-Marxist) global literatures.Location: Kyung Hee University, College of Foreign Language & Literature, Global CampusStart/end date: 2025 (semester tbc)


Horror Studies / 공포서사연구 ELC75400Professor: Jason BarkerCredits: 3Horror is a cliché of genre conventions: gothic fiction, the slasher movie, portrait of a serial killer. In this class we set out from the premise that horror is an anthropological phenomenon, not a genre, originating in the separation of oikos and polis in ancient Athens - "the birth of tragedy" - and culminating in the lockdown society of Covid 19. We also consider horror through Enlightenment thinking (in Descartes, Spinoza, Kant); Romanticism (Thomas De Quincey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge); the Industrial Revolution (Marx and Engels); phenomenology (Thomas Ligotti); psychoanalysis (Freud, Lacan) and postmodern cinema (David Lynch, Jordan Peele, Jonathan Glazer).Location: Kyung Hee University, College of Foreign Language & Literature, Global CampusStart/end date: 2025 (semester tbc)


MA Cultural Studies in the Department of British & American Language and Culture (Graduate School) is a two year taught course with a final thesis requirement. As the only graduate course of its kind in Korea, it comprises a diverse syllabus of modern and contemporary literature, Korean media, philosophy, feminism, psychoanalysis and critical theory. The course is taught entirely in English. Graduate School professors include Jason Barker, Alex Taek-Gwang Lee, Myong-ho Lee, and Hye Jean Chung. Past visiting professors include Slavoj Žižek and Gregg Lambert, and future invited professors confirmed for the 2025 academic year include Ray Brassier.Successful overseas applicants receive a Kyung Hee University scholarship covering their course tuition fees. In addition overseas students may be eligible for a Global Korea Scholarship (this is a separate financial assistance package for graduate students run by the Korean Ministry of Education).For initial enquiries contact Professor Jason Barker in the Department of British & American Language and Culture (Graduate School): 039716 [at] khu.ac.kr


seminars in 2025


Marx's Enigmas of FreedomWith Jason Barker and Ray BrassierWhat is the status of "freedom" in Karl Marx's critique of capitalism? The false freedoms of free labour and the free market go without saying. But what of true freedoms beyond the "real movement" of communism "which abolishes the present state of things" - including communism itself as organised resistance to capitalism?This 12-week seminar will explore these questions both critically and creatively using ideas from Jason Barker's novel Marx Returns (2018) and Ray Brassier's forthcoming work Freedom and Fatality after Marx (2025).Course delivery: Online (weekly livestream)Dates: Friday 28 February - Friday 16 May 2025 (12 x 3 hour seminars inc. class discussion)Registration fee: 90.00 euros per personOnline registration will be open on this page from 1 October 2024 to 31 January 2025.Please direct all inquiries to filmsnoirs [at] gmail.com