Since its establishment in 1988 within the East Asian Institute (now the Weatherhead East Asian Institute), the Center for Korean Research has played a leading role in the study of Korea within Columbia University, the New York City area, and beyond. At Columbia, CKR fosters global, interdisciplinary connections, frequently partnering with the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, APEC Study Center, the Institute for the Study of Human Rights, The Center for Korean Legal Studies, Human Rights Institute, Columbia Law School, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, C.V. Starr East Asian Library, Film Program in the School of the Arts, and Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business. By sponsoring public lectures, conferences, workshops, and cultural events such as movies and concerts on Korea-related topics, the CKR works to advance academic knowledge and a greater public awareness of Korea in the New York City area and, more broadly, North America. CKR also serves as a bridge between Korean Studies in North America and the most recent work of the Korean academic world through its sponsorship of visiting scholars and active partnerships with universities and institutions in South Korea. The CKR hosts the annual Columbia University Alumni Association of Korea Colloquium Series on Contemporary Korean Affairs and the Korea Foundation Colloquium Series on Korean Cultural Studies. The CKR also sponsors the annual "Center for Korean Research Manhae Prize for Korean Language" in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures.

 

From left to right: Jungwon Kim, Jooyeon Kim, Theodore Hughes, and Charles Armstrong

Center for Korean Research Core Faculty and Staff

 

News and Event Highlights   Journal of Korean Studies Co-edited by WEAI professor Theodore Hughes and Jina Kim (Dickinson College), a special issue of the Journal of Korean Studies entitled Intermedial Aesthetics: Korean Literature, Film, and Art was published in December 2015. Intermedial Aesthetics: Korean Literature, Film, and Art takes up the question of what lies in between and across the large spectrum of media that includes literature, film, photography, art exhibition, and technology in their interactions with each other and as inflected by the colonial and postcolonial histories of Korea. The special issue examines the ways in which the emergence of new kinds of media and their accompanying technological innovations throughout the twentieth century (and now as we forge ahead into the twenty-first century) continue to animate the way literature, art, and film get made and remade.   We are pleased to announce that the Center for Korean Research will house the Journal of Korean Studies beginning in Fall 2016.     Alumni News   CKR is pleased to announce the recent placements of the following alumnae: Ksenia Chizhova, History and Literature (Assistant Professor, Princeton University) Dajeong Chung, History (Visiting Assistant Professor, College of William and Mary) Se-Mi Oh, History (Assistant Professor, University of Michigan) Mi-Ryong Shim , Literature (Assistant Professor, Northwestern University)     CKR congratulates alumna Jisoo M. Kim for her book The Emotions of Justice: Gender, Status, and Legal Performance in Chosŏn Korea (January, 2016), published by the University of Washington Press.   CKR congratulates alumnus Charles Kim for his book For a Bright Tomorrow: Culture and Protest in Cold War South Korea (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute), which will soon be under contract at the University of Hawaii Press. John K. Fairbank Prize Congratulations to Charles Armstrong, Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies in the Social Sciences, on his receipt of the American Historical Association's John K. Fairbank Prize for 2014 for his book, Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950 - 1992. Established by a gift to the Association from the friends of the prominent historian of China and East Asia at Harvard and President of the Association in 1968, the John K. Fairbank Prize is awarded for the best work on the history of China proper, Vietnam, Chinese Central Asia, Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, or Japan since the year 1800.   James B. Palais Book Prize The 2014 James B. Palais Book Prize goes to Professor Theodore Hughes, Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Korean Studies in the Humanities and Director of The Center for Korean Research for Literature and Film in Cold War South Korea: Freedom's Frontier. Professor Hughes's book, published by Columbia University Press, explores the ways in which Korean writers and filmmakers represented colonialism and modernity during Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945 and, subsequently, the ways in which the colonial experience informed the work of Korean artists in the Cold War period. The James B. Palais Book Prize has been awarded annually since 2010 to acknowledge an outstanding English language book published about Korea.

Association for Asian Studies Vice-President

We are pleased to announce the election of Laurel Kendall, Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at Columbia and Curator of Asian Ethnographic Collections at the American Museum of Natural History and Center for Korean Research affiliate, as the next Vice-President of the Association for Asian Studies. 

 

Kim Sejong Professorship

Professor Jungwon Kim has been named King Sejong Assistant Professor of Korean Studies in the Humanities in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures.

Korea Foundation Support

The Colloquia on Korean Cultural Studies series is made possiible by the generous funding from the Korea Foundation.

 

Korea Foundation Postdoc Fellow Jungshim Lee

CKR welcomes Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship recipient Jungshim Lee. Dr. Lee will spend the 2015-2016 academic year at Columbia revising her doctoral dissertation "Buddhist Writers in Colonial Korea: Rethinking Korean Literature, Religion and History.”

Columbia University Alumni Association Endowment Drive

We thank and congratulate the Columbia University Alumni Association of Korea for successfully completing

the CKR endowment drive!