Weeyang Gelles-Soh

I am a linguistic and sociocultural anthropologist whose research threads questions of entertainment, politics, and technology. My first book project examines the modern K-pop industry, exploring how its production processes are informed by aesthetic and ethical commitments to creating "precise" pop media. Through the figure of the K-pop idol, I investigate popularity and its relationship to credit-making practices for A&Rs, producers, and fans alike. Beyond K-pop, my published work covers online memes as digital protest in Singapore, the borrowing of American right-wing lexicon in Singapore’s anti-Western nationalist discourses, and the bridging potential of video games in polarized political landscapes.

At Bowdoin, I bring these interests to bear on emerging questions about artificial and human intelligences. Rather than assuming that "intelligence" defines a rational, sovereign entity, I trace its historical emergence as a measure for specific faculties, as well as its status as a deeply fantasized site of human desire, aspiration, fear, and even capitulation. I pose these questions: What happens if we treat intelligence as something other than a personal attribute? Are there alternative ways of seeing intelligence that could release us from our fixation with LLMs? In what ways is an LLM actually ‘AI,’ and in what ways is it not?

Modern anthropology is as much a deep commitment and as it is a keen sensitivity to life’s possibilities. In my teaching, I encourage students to think across disciplines rather than stay within normative academic limits. My own life is guided by an active curiosity about the lives led by others on this wondrous planet.