Committee on Korean Studies

Committee on Korean Studies 2019 Annual Meeting minutes

Friday, March 22, 9:00 pm (A draft to be approved at the 2020 General Meeting)

At 9:07, the meeting was called to order by Sunyoung Park, Chair.  CKS board members offered introductions.

9:14: A motion to approve the 2018 meeting minutes was passed.  A suggestion was offered to circulate future minutes in advance.

9:20: Sunyoung Park spoke on the role of CKS, after discussing the results of the April-May 2018 CKS survey in which members supported the continuation of CKS, the extension of the Chair’s term to two years, and the reduction of the size of the Executive Board from seven to five members.  She also discussed meeting with Academy of Korean Studies representatives at the World Congress of Korean Studies.

9:25: Albert Park of the AAS Northeast Asia Council (NEAC) discussed the selection of panel and paper proposals at the Annual Meeting, Korea Foundation funding of NEAC for its grant program, and the relationship between NEAC and CKS.

9:35: Other members of the Executive Committee reported on specific CKS initiatives: CedarBough Saeji on the newsletter, Robert Oppenheim on the syllabus archive posted to the CKS website, Jisoo Kim on the CKS mentorship workshop, and Dal Yong Jin on the CKS roundtable at the 2019 Annual Meetings.

9:45: Sunyoung Park discussed the importance of building the CKS embership list.

9:48: Sunyoung Park offered a proposal to restructure the Executive Committee to have specific roles for committee members, to include Vice Chair, Treasurer, Publication Director, and Program Director.  The proposal was approved by floor vote.

9:52: Sunyoung Park discussed some future program initiatives.  Hilary Finchum-Sung, Executive Director of the AAS, noted the importance of members’ renewal of their membership.

10:00: The floor was opened for discussion and the sharing of news. Reports on programs and publications (with reporting member) included notes on the Modern Language Association translation series (Nayoung Aimee Kwon), Journal of Asian Studies Korea book reviews (Kyung Moon Hwang), Pacific Affairs (Dal Yong Jin), the Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies (Ross King), the book volume Beyond Death (Charles Kim), the Korean language summer immersion program at Minnesota (Dafna Zur), the Korea Anthropology Review (Hilary Finchum-Sung), the Korea Expose website (Cheehyung Harrison Kim), and the Inter-University Center for Korean Language Studies (Ross King).

10:21: The meeting was adjourned.

CKS Events at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, 2022

“Getting into Print in Korean Studies” will be held in Meeting Room 324, Saturday, March 26, 2:15-3:45pm Hawaii Time or at the following Zoom meeting for remote participants: Meeting ID: 940 6335 6073 (Passcode: y7ZYG8). Our panelists have graciously agreed to speak and to answer questions as journal and book editors in Korean studies: Lorri Hagman (University of Washington Press), Cheehyung Harrison Kim (Korea Studies), Jisoo Kim (Journal of Korean Studies) Albert Park (JAS and Environments of East Asia), Sunyoung Park (Kaya), Janet Poole (MLA Texts and Translations), and Henry Em (Korea Journal).

This year’s annual meeting will also be a hybrid event held 7:30-9:30pm Hawaii Time, Friday, March 25, in South Pacific 2 or at this Zoom meeting (Meeting ID: 934 3639 3342; Passcode: 197G8K). We will discuss the programs for the upcoming year, field questions and requests from membership, and introduce the incoming chair of Committee on Korean Studies. Congratulations to Maya Stiller for being nominated and agreeing to take over as board chair beginning after the conference. The Korea Foundation reception is by coincidence happening at the same time as the annual meeting, but if you are attending that reception please come by on your way and we will try to keep things short, so everyone has a chance to attend both events. We will have refreshments and appetizers.

CFP: Korean Literature Association Annual Meeting

November 11-12, 2022

University of Oregon

Eugene, OR, USA

The Korean Literature Association cordially invites proposals for its annual meeting on the theme of “Resonance” to be held at the University of Oregon, Eugene, OR. We invite individual papers and team projects that reflect on the way resonance can open up and connect Korean literary studies to the broader human world across disciplinary boundaries, historical periods, geographical borders, and linguistic systems.

Resonance—derived from its Latin roots resonare (resound) and resonantia (echo) and the French résonance—refers to a sound or a quality of a sound. Yet as The OED lists, resonance also means the power to evoke images, memories, and emotions; a sympathetic response; and allusions, connotations, and overtones. Although the specifications vary, the overarching concept of resonance involves movement through either vibration, oscillation, wave, or amplification that leads to a response—another movement, which together can produce meaning and value. Using these broad definitions as a starting metaphor and a springboard for creative extensions, we hope that the theme of “Resonance” allows us to explore Korean literature by embracing myriad forms, modes, and mechanisms that are both intimately and distantly connected to what constitutes Korean literature’s legacies and transformations. In this way, this conference aims to reconceptualize resonance as an important heuristic device for Korean literary and cultural studies.

Of particular interest to this endeavor will be discussions on how and where Korean literature resonates. How might we analyze, interpret, and ground resonance within Korean literature’s history and its contemporary making? How can we use resonance as a framework for transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary work on Korea? How is Korean literature embedded in the practices of the larger humanities and other fields, such as in the social sciences and STEM and vice versa? How might the resonances of Korean literature challenge the long-established theoretical practices and contribute to the ongoing making of global aesthetics? What are the places, moments, and instances of dissonance rather than resonance which nevertheless allow Korean literature to intervene in knowledge building and problem-solving and illuminating human conditions?

Topics could include but are not limited to the following:

Sound and sonic culture in Korea

Technologies and techniques of writing, reading, listening, seeing

Adaptation, Transemdiality, Intermediality

Premodern and Modern East Asian literary connections

Korean diaspora and Global Korean aesthetics

Digital humanities or Humanizing digitalization

Public humanities and Korean literature

The KLA (http://korlit.org/wp/) seeks submissions from graduate students and faculty at any stage of their careers who are interested in presenting papers at the Conference. Individual as well as organized panels are welcome. Humanities and the study of literature have often been construed as an individual endeavor rather than a team effort, in this call for proposals, we are especially interested in seeking projects that bring teams of researchers together in demonstrating collaborative building of Korean literary studies. We are currently planning an in-person conference at the University of Oregon.

The deadline for submissions is June 15, 2022. Please send your 300-word abstract and a short CV to Jina Kim at jinak@uoregon.edu