With the Korea Institute’s generous support, I was able to make significant progress in dissertation research in the summer of 2023. My dissertation project examines the history of the pharmaceutical industry and market in South Korea as a lens into changing notions of health, sickness, and cure across the dynamic two decades after Liberation in 1945. Previously, I conducted fieldwork in South Korea for a year between 2021-22. During this time, I encountered a joyful challenge: most of the primary sources for this topic were not yet digitized and accessible...
Thanks to the generous support from the Korea Institute, the summer of 2023 has been a fruitful one as I could conduct pre-dissertation research for my doctoral project in South Korea. The objective of my summer research this year was to explore the landscapes and institutions of unclaimed (muyŏn'go) death-management in contemporary South Korea, focusing on the Seoul/Kyŏnggi area with a...
Ethnographic Exploration of the Right to be Forgotten in South Korea
With the increasing awareness of unwanted online exposure and the advancement in AI technology, data privacy and management have become the critical contemporary issue, intertwined with sociocultural, political, and legal transformations. The South Korean government’s initiative to establish legal and institutional ground for “the right to be forgotten” by 2024 further highlights the...
The 2023 AAS-in-Asia conference was held at Kyungpook National University in Daegu, South Korea under the theme of “Memory, Preservation, and Documentation.” Before presenting my research on the mediatization of transnational memories of the Japanese Empire at the conference, I was able to visit four museums of military sexual slavery in Korea with a Korea Institute Graduate Summer Research Travel Grant.
Thanks to the generosity of the Korea Institute, I was able to conduct preliminary research for my doctoral project about online data management and erasure. The KI summer research travel grant offered me a great opportunity to explore my potential field sites and the groups of people with whom I hope to further navigate my research journey.
During my stay in Korea, I began with the questions of who wants to remove their online footprints, why they do that, and how such tracing and erasing process intersects with emerging technology, law, gender, and economy in South Korea. I...
Despite uncertainties posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, I was fortunately able to travel to Seoul for three weeks to conduct research for my master’s thesis. It had been four years since I last visited Korea, but it was my first time going for the sole purpose of research. While the landscape of Seoul felt familiar, the destinations I went to were all new and exciting. Thanks to the generous support of the Korea Institute, I not only collected valuable primary and secondary source materials for my thesis, but I also had the opportunity to meet with important individuals in the field who...
The generosity of the Korea Institute enabled me to make significant progress on my dissertation research and begin writing my prospectus. Over the course of visiting numerous archives, my intention to write for my dissertation an oceanic and maritime history of post-1945 Korea-Japan relations came into sharper focus. In my prospectus, I aim to suggest the importance of triangulating the relationship between diplomacy, oceanic environments, and the fisheries industries in both postliberation Korea (and across the period of the Korean War) and postwar Japan, to better understand how both... Read more about A Graduate Student Perspective: Gene Kim, G2, EALC-HEAL, KI Graduate Summer Research Grant, Summer 2022
This summer, owing to the support of the Korea Institute, I participated in the intensive 6-week advanced academic Korean language program at the Inter-University Center for Korean Language Studies at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU). I greatly appreciate the opportunity to take part in the program which is essentially the only Korean language program that is specifically designed to train foreign researchers and professionals in Korean studies in the use of high-level, academic Korean.
The program was particularly useful as it allowed me to broaden and deepen the scope of my...
With the Korean Institute Graduate Summer Language Study Grant, I attended Sogang University’s Korean Immersion Program (KIP) from June 27 to July 22, 2022. Sogang KIP is a very vibrant program that focuses on improving students’ Korean speaking skills through language training and cultural immersion. There was not a single day that went uneventful. On weekdays, we had language class from 9AM to 1PM then culture class from 2.30PM onwards. Language class covered pragmatic topics, such as how to find a place to live in...
The Korea Institute, Harvard University announces the 2022 Student Grant and Fellowship Awards
These Korea Institute undergraduate and graduate student awards are generously supported by the Min Young-Chul Memorial Fund, Sunshik Min Endowment for the Advancement of Korean Literature Fund, Modern Korean Economy and Society (Sanhak) Endowment Fund, SBS Endowment Fund, SBS Foundation Research Fund, LG Yonam Fund and anonymous donors at the Korea Institute, Harvard University.
Thanks to the generous support of the Korea Institute, I was able to participate in the 3-week short term online program at Korea University from June to July this summer. It was an intensive program conducted solely online, dedicated to the improvement of Korean speaking, reading and writing in a short period of time. The course focused on mastering vocabulary on complicated topics about society such as volunteer work, environmental issues, and health concerns, while practicing how to...
After completing my year of field research abroad in Korea, I returned to Cambridge during this past summer of 2021, and thanks to the generosity of the Korea Institute, I was able to begin the process of writing the dissertation chapters based on the sources I was able to gather while in Korea.
My dissertation topic is broadly on modern Korean political and intellectual history from liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 to the end of the Park Chung Hee dictatorship in 1979; specifically, I examine the content of both state-produced and public discourses and...
Thanks to the largess of the Korea Institute and the hospitality of Korea 4-H, I was able to travel to Seoul and conduct substantial dissertation research on the latter. 4-H was the largest rural youth club throughout most of the US-allied world after 1945, and the largest in the world was the Republic of Korea’s, which had more participants and a more extensive role than any other national 4-H. 4-H’s main purpose was educating rural youth not formally enrolled in schools with life skills, so its history is also a history of the shifting position of the countryside in a quickly...
My doctoral research interests are in blindness and technology in South Korea. I was wondering whether and how the emphasis on technological innovation in Korean society and policy leads to improve the data accessibility and living convenience of people with disabilities, specifically blind people. I hope to examine in what aspects and why blind people experience difficulties in daily life.
Thanks to the 2021 KI Graduate Summer Research Grant program, I could begin my preliminary research with learning braille. This summer, I learned braille not only through a ‘traditional way...