James Gui is a second-year PhD student in Ethnomusicology affiliated with the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. His research focuses on popular music in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, post-World War II to the present. He is interested in local media and performance cultures formed in the wake of U.S. occupation, examining musicality and militarization as a trope in film, literature, and present-day tourism initiatives in former U.S. camp towns.
Before Columbia, James received an A.B. in Computer Science at Harvard University in 2020 and later studied traditional Korean percussion in Seoul for two years. He also works as a freelance music critic and DJ, with words in Bandcamp Daily, The Wire Magazine, Pitchfork, and more.
