The Korea Institute is pleased to announce the Soon Young Kim Postdoctoral Fellow in Korean Studies for academic year 2014-15: Dr. Seong Uk Kim.
Dr. Kim received his Ph.D. in Korean Religions and Korean Buddhism from the University of California, Los Angeles in June of 2013. His dissertation is entitled, “Korean Sŏn Buddhism in the 19th Century: Paekp’a, Ch’oŭi and Buddhist-Confucian Interaction at the End of the Chosŏn Dynasty.” His research/teaching interests specialize in Korean Zen Buddhism with a subfield in Korean studies. He focuses on the Korean-Confucian intersection in late Chosŏn. In particular, he demonstrates that the intersection of these two religions occurred not only on a personal level between Buddhist monks and Confucian literati but also on a philosophical level that led to the mutual transformation of Buddhism and Confucianism.
Currently, Dr. Kim is working as a Postdoctoral teaching fellow at Washington University in St. Louis, in the Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures/Religious Studies Department, where he is teaching “Introduction to Korean Religions” this spring. He has received several awards including the Buddhist Studies Regents Award in 2010 and the Luce Foundation Fellowship in 2007. He is also a co-author of the book, Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, published in 2013.
As Soon Young Kim Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard, Dr. Kim plans to analyze and write up his research findings, develop teaching materials, and extend his dissertation into a publishable manuscript. He will begin his postdoctoral fellowship at the Korea Institute in August 2014 and will offer a course in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations in the 2014-15 academic year.
The Korea Institute acknowledges the generous and thoughtful support of Dr. Dong-Won Kim, whose vision for the Soon Young Kim Postdoctoral Fellowship is to provide the opportunity to advance new scholarly horizons in Korean Studies, by promoting the study of Korea with research and innovative teaching on original topics.