Seung-kyung Kim presented this year’s Samuel C. Chu Memorial Lecture for the History Department at Ohio State University. Her lecture was titled: “South Korean Millennials’ Military Service and Neoliberal Calculations.”

Mandatory military service has been an inescapable fact of life for young men in South Korea from the time of the Korean War until the present. It continues to this day, despite the country’s neoliberal transformation that began following the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the extension of the neoliberal values of market competition, individual freedom, and meritocracy into all facets of contemporary South Korean life; and despite the contradiction between an ideology of freedom and rational choices, and an institution that obligates men to serve in the military or face imprisonment. Based on interviews with 45 South Korean college students who had recently completed their military service, this study examines how the neoliberal ethos instilled in Korean millennials as they grew up in 21st century guides their decisions and strategies regarding military service.

Seung-kyung Kim at Ohio State University

Professors from across the US and Korea gathered on August 7, 2019, to participate in a workshop “Long Work Hours in South Korea and Beyond” hosted by the Institute for Korean Studies. The goal of this workshop was to bring together a diverse set of scholars who study long work hours in South Korea in order to have a comprehensive discussion of this topic. Dr. Youngjoo Cha (Department of Sociology, Indiana University) was the organizer of this workshop.

South Korea is well-known for its long work hours and its culture of “overwork,” and the participants addressed the question as to why the culture of overwork is particularly pronounced in South Korea, and how it affects individuals and families. They covered a wide range of topics, including comparative or cross-national studies, in order to facilitate understanding of this problem in a full range of cultural and institutional contexts.

Research from this workshop will be published in a special issue of a peer-reviewed journal. Participants included Soohan Kim (Korea University), Young-Mi Kim (Yonsei University), Hyunji Kwon (Seoul National University), Joohee Lee (Ewha Womans University), Jae Kyung Lee (Ewha Womans University), Sue H. Moon (SUNY Farmingdale), Eunsil Oh (Harvard University), Hyunjoon Park (University of Pennsylvania), Hyeyoung Woo (Portland State University), and Soo-Yeon Yoon (Sonoma State University).

Long Work Hours in South Korea and Beyond Workshop participants

IKS invites all undergraduate students at Indiana University to participate in the first annual Korean Literature Essay Contest. Students must submit a 1,000-1,250 word essay in English on the topic of The Vegetarian by Han Kang (trans. Deborah Smith). The essay should be original, thought provoking, and well argued. Four prizes will be awarded, including the grand prize of a MacBook laptop computer. Submit your essays by September 30, 2019, by using the link below.

This event is made possible with funding from the Literature Translation Institute of Korea.

Please note that awards $600 or over will be reported on the IRS Form 1099-MISC by Indiana University. The IRS has stipulated that amounts less than $600 are required to be self-reported by the recipient on their personal tax return. Please consult with your personal tax advisor for any questions or concerns.

Application Deadline: September 15, 2019

The Institutes for Korean Studies at the George Washington University and Indiana University Bloomington invite students to apply for the annual GW-IU Undergraduate Research Exchange Program. We are seeking to select students who are interested in conducting research about Korea. All students receive mentoring from faculty at the Institute for Korean Studies.

Selected students participate in research workshops during the fall and spring semesters, take part in a mini-conference, and present their papers at the annual GW-IU Korean Studies Undergraduate Research Exchange Conference in the spring semester. The conference alternates locations between Washington, DC, and Bloomington, IN. This academic year’s conference will be held at Indiana University.

Benefits of the Program

• Get close mentoring by faculty through monthly meetings
• Produce a 15-20 page research paper on any Korea-related research topic such as politics, inter-Korean affairs, literature, film, K-pop, history, sociology, anthropology and more!
• Participate in a mini-research conference and the annual GW-IU Korean Studies Exchange Conference in March 2020
• Opportunities to volunteer at the Institute for Korean Studies events

Eligibility:

• Undergraduates (juniors and seniors preferred)
• Research proposal on any Korea related topic

How to Apply:

IU students send an email to kjseidel@indiana.edu with resume and one-page research proposal with the following information:

• What is the title of your project?
• Research questions: What questions will you be asking in your research?
• Methods: How are you going to conduct your research? Using what data?
• Significance: Why is your research important?

Five students from Indiana University traveled to Washington D.C. to present papers based on their original research at the First Annual GW-IU Undergraduate Research Exchange Program Conference.

The Students and their presentations were:

Emily Gibson (senior) “North Korean Perspectives on Democracy, Human Rights and Capitalism: The State vs. Migrants”

Margaret Suh (senior) “South Korea’s Energy Choice and Climate Diplomacy”

Lucas Maurer (junior) “Identifying Phonological Patterns Underlying Korean Orthography Revision”

Paola Flores (senior) “The Marginalization of Elderly Women in 21st Century Korea”

Chaewon Lee (junior) “Perceptions and Dimensions of Peace: The Divergent Discourse of Inter-Korean Peace between Hankyoreh and Chosun Ilbo in South Korea”

Paola Flores

Margaret Suh

Lucas Maurer

Emily Gibson

Chaewon Lee

IU undergraduate student Shuyao Wang took the first place prize in the intermediate level at the First Midwest Korean Speech Contest held at Northwestern University on April 13, 2019. Her speech was entitled “Korean Education Culture.” She received a prize which included a scholarship to study Korean at Kyunghee University or Sungkyunkwan University and $800 towards airfare to Korea.

Two other IU students, Veronica Coffey (beginner level) and Yingfei Sun (advanced level), participated in the speech contest and displayed a high level of Korean proficiency. Their speeches were titled “My Opinion on Current Social & Cultural Issues” and “The Truth of Korean Broadcasting.”

The Midwest Korean Speech Contest was held for the first time this year and was organized by Dr. Hyo Sang Lee (Indiana University) and Dr. Ihnhee Kim (Northwestern University). 41 students from 17 universities participated. At IU, winners of the annual Korean Speech Contest organized by IKS are invited to participate in the larger regional contest.

Shuyao Wang receives award during the First Midwest Korean Speech Contest.

IKS held its Korean Speech Contest on March 2nd. fourteen students participated. Winners were chosen from Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced Levels. Congratulations to all the participants and winners:

Beginner

1st Place: Veronica Coffey
2nd Place: Jude Rucker
3rd Place: Hou Nan Sin

Intermediate

1st Place: Shuyao Wang
2nd Place: Katharine Lawrence
3rd Place: Toby Huter

Advanced

1st Place: Victor Cornet
2nd Place: Yingfei Sun
3rd Place: Noemie Sollier

2019 Speech Contest Group Photo

Indiana University’s Institute for Korean Studies presented three films from one of South Korea’s most interesting and successful commercial film directors, Ryoo Seung-wan. Influenced by Hong Kong action films from the 1970s, his thrilling films feature fast-paced plots and well-choreographed action scenes. His 2015 film, Veteran, sold more than 13 million tickets and is the fourth all-time highest-grossing film in Korean cinema history. Notable for bringing attention to pertinent social issues such as corruption and social inequality, Ryoo Seung-wan is a central figure in the thriving Korean film industry, attracting South Korea’s best actors for his films.

The screenings of Veteran, City of Violence, and Battleship Island at IU cinema were introduced by a panel of film experts led by IU alumnus, Darcy Paquet, one of South Korea’s most prominent film critics and the creator of the website koreanfilm.org. Paquet has lived in Korea since 1997 and teaches classes on cinema at Kyung Hee University and Korea University, as well as doing freelance subtitle and screenplay translation and radio and television work. In addition to his film criticism and scholarship, he has written extensively on the Korean film industry with pieces featured in Screen, Variety, and the Korean film weekly Cine 21.

The panel also included Prof. Kyu Hyun Kim of the University of California, Davis, and Dr. Molly Kim of Han Yang University in Seoul. Director Ryoo was unable to be present in person, but he joined the discussion by teleconferencing.

After showing Ryoo’s films in Bloomington, IKS brought Darcy Paquet and Molly Kim to introduce screenings of Ryoo’s films at the University of Louisville, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Director Ryoo also joined the screening at UIUC by teleconference.

This series was jointly sponsored by the Institute for Korean Studies and IU Cinema.

Director Ryoo Seung-wan in Seoul teleconferencing into UIUC with Molly Kim

Film critics Kyu Hyun Kim, Darcy Paquet and Molly Kim at IU Cinema

Participants of the first GW-IU Undergraduate Research Exchange Program have been selected and started research on their projects. These five outstanding students will produce a research paper and travel to George Washington University for a conference in April 2019 to present their research alongside students of GW. Congratulations to all of the participants!

Paola Flores is a senior majoring in International Studies. Her research project is titled “The Intersectionality of Age, Gender, and Poverty in South Korea’s Bacchus Ladies”

Emily Gibson is a senior majoring in East Asian Languages and Cultures and International Studies. Her research project is titled “Perspectives of Democracy inside North Korea.”

Chaewon Lee is a junior majoring in East Asian Languages and Cultures and International Studies. Her research project is titled “Peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

Lucas Maurer is a junior majoring in East Asian Languages and Cultures. His research project is titled “Identifying Phonological Patterns Underlying Korean Orthography Revision.”

Margaret Suh is a senior majoring in International Studies and Political Science. Her research project is titled “South Korea’s Transition to Renewable Energy.”

Keith Seidel

Keith Seidel, Assistant Director of the Institute for Korean Studies, won second prize in the 2018 Global Korean Literature Translation Award competition for his translation of the short story, Bukchon, by Lee Hye-kyung. The GKL Award was established under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to “help promote Korean literature internationally and secure Korean literature’s global reputation.” The prize includes a cash award of 5,000,000 won ($4,460.00).