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...
As a Government concentrator who had lived in the United States my entire life, I was most familiar with the American political system. However, when considering my senior thesis, I knew that I wanted to have it focused on Korea. This was because as someone who has Korean immigrant parents but grew up in the United States, I had some awareness of Korean politics but wanted to gain a better understanding of specifically how Korean culture and politics are...
I went to the Ewha International Summer College (EISC) with the main goal of improving my Korean language skills. I left feeling culturally enriched, with a much greater understanding of the Korean and Korean American communities, and with friends from across the globe.
When I arrived on campus, I was greeted by my roommate from the Netherlands, and we instantly bonded over comparisons between our home countries, cultures, and...
Faculty Project: Stories of Ecological Devastation, Mental Illness, and Inequality Faculty Director: Prof. Karen Thornber
Over the summer, I researched Korean-language narratives exploring the intersections of environment, justice, and mental health to identify potential sources for Professor Thornber’s upcoming book. Through this experience, I had the chance to work with diverse sources across many genres and time periods, from Korean premodern literature to environmental campaigns in K-pop. As a neuroscience concentrator, this position was the first time I conducted research...
Thanks to the unparalleled financial support from Harvard’s centers, Korea Institute in particular, I was able to conduct fieldwork for my senior thesis this past summer. The generous funding from Korea Institute specifically enabled me to travel to Korea and base in Seoul for two months, having covered living expenses and the cost of site visits.
My tentative research question of how Vietnamese migrant divorcees in Korea...
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...
The past eight weeks have been a whirlwind of personal growth, cultural immersion, and unforgettable experiences that I am incredibly grateful for!
The opportunity to study abroad has always been a dream of mine. This summer, that dream became a reality as I found myself in the heart of Seoul, South Korea, exploring, learning, and forging lifelong friendships. What I had initially believed to be primarily an academic pursuit quickly transformed into a profound connection with people, places, and a culture I would have otherwise never experienced!
For 8 immersive weeks over the summer, I had the amazing opportunity to study abroad in Seoul, South Korea — learning more about my own culture, studying with new faces from Harvard, and making lifelong friendships with intelligent and empowering women from Ewha University.
Growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood, I was never given the opportunity or resources to explore my Korean identity. By engaging in this program, I was able to not only visit my home country for the first time, but truly experience all aspects of life in Korea. Whether it be exploring Busan on one of...
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.
Kai Ford, ’23, East Asian Studies, Working on Prof. Hi-Sun Kim’s Language Transcription for the Korean Language Program project
My work with Professor Kim was focused on transcribing recorded interviews of Korean students from various levels of the Korean language program. The students were given a topic to discuss and then proceeded to converse freely on the topic for anywhere from 25-30 minutes. My job was to take careful note of anything from mispronunciations, lapses of speech,...
The Ewha-Harvard Summer School exchange program was an incredible experience that I am grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in. Academically, both courses—the Korean 120A language course and the S-1763 North Korean Government course—were equally interesting and fulfilling. I appreciated taking the Korean course first as it allowed me to become more comfortable speaking the language and better acclimating to living in Korea. The courses were not extremely time-consuming and afforded ample time for weekend trips and exploration around the city.
This summer I had the privilege of attending Seoul National University’s International Summer Program on a tuition waiver scholarship from the Harvard Korea Institute. As a long-time K-pop fanatic and Korean food enthusiast, I was more than eager for the opportunity to visit South Korea for the first time. With the generosity of the KI, this visit existed as a 5 week living and learning experience that I will carry with me for years to come.
At SNU, I had the opportunity to further my Korean language education through their foreign language classes and enroll in an economics class...
This summer, I had the opportunity to go to Korea for a month for the Seoul National University International Summer Program (SNU ISP). I took two courses (one for credit and one just for fun): International Relations and Peace Building in the Korean Peninsula & Arts, Media, and Culture in the Korean Diaspora. I enjoyed both courses; the former catered explicitly to my interests, especially when exploring North Korean human rights issues and reunification challenges. The latter was also interesting as we explored the global influences of Korea and the Korean diaspora worldwide. These...
At Harvard, it’s easy to lose track of the rest of the world. When your entire existence here is regimented into eight semesters, 128 credits, and a minimum GPA of 3.0, you sometimes forget that this isn’t the only – or even the best – way to do things. And it wasn’t until last week, when I heard the Korean artist Park Dae Sung speak on campus, that I personally got a wake-up call.
Since September 19, the Korea Institute at Harvard University has been displaying the ‘Park Dae Sung: Ink and Soul’ exhibition on the Councourse floor of the Center for...
