K-Pop Demon Hunters: Women, Spirits, and Korea’s Occult Traditions

Inspired by the Netflix original film K-Pop Demon Hunters, this illustrated talk uses the movie as a gateway into Korea’s spiritual landscape.

The film’s vision of song as sorcery and female warriors battling unseen forces draws directly from musok, Korea’s indigenous shamanic tradition. For centuries, mudang — predominantly women — have worked with spirits through ritual music, dance, and performance to heal, protect, and negotiate with the unseen world. In K-Pop Demon Hunters, these practices are reimagined as pop spectacle, where music becomes a weapon and performance becomes ritual.

In this lecture, Melanie Hyo-In Han explores how musok and mudang traditions — often misunderstood or marginalised — inform the film’s imagery, narrative, and worldview. Moving beyond the screen, the talk situates these practices within a living tradition shaped by women’s spiritual authority, the disruptions of Japanese colonisation, and the pressures of modernisation.

Blending historical insight, cultural critique, and rich visual material, K-Pop Demon Hunters: Women, Spirits, and Korea’s Occult Traditions offers audiences a deeper understanding of Korean spirits, ritual song, and female power — revealing how ancient occult lineages continue to resurface in contemporary global culture.

Please note this is an in-person lecture (not a Zoom event). Tickets include a complimentary glass of Devil’s Botany Chocolate Absinthe. Doors open at 6:30pm, talk starts at 7pm.

Find out more info or book your tickets on https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/k-pop-demon-hunters-women-spirits-and-koreas-occult-traditions-live-tickets-1981963885334

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