Black Market Intimacies reveals how illicit exchanges of money and commodities involving sexual encounters between Korean and Japanese women and US soldiers provided the material foundations of the regional economy across Korea and Japan during the Korean War. Against the conventional view that illicit exchanges exist outside the formal economy and legal regulations, Jeongmin Kim … [Read More]
Booklist: Gender studies
Migration and Cross-Border Marriage in South Korea: Brokering Nationhood and Wifehood
Rather than treating them as logistical intermediaries, this book reconceptualizes the role of cross-border marriage brokers in South Korea, facilitating mobility while also helping to shape narratives around gender, family, and national belonging in contemporary Asia. Drawing on multi-sited, qualitative research – including discourse analysis of brokers’ online videos, interviews, fieldwork at an NGO, and … [Read More]
Imperial Entertainers: Korean Women Performers from Military to Global Stages, 1937–75
The book uncovers the untold stories of Korean women performers who navigated successive waves of conflict as cultural laborers in military entertainment, offering insight into the intersection of war, gender, and culture in East Asia. Imperial Entertainers: Korean Women Performers from Military to Global Stages, 1937-1975 uncovers the untold stories of Korean women performers who navigated … [Read More]
Once You Cross a Street You’re on the Edge of a Cliff: Surviving the Sex Industry in Korea
Prostitution is the oldest “profession” in the world—that’s what they say. According to Havocsope, total prostitution revenue is $186 billion worldwide, with 40-42 million women prostituted. The number itself is staggering, but the reality is hard to grasp with the statistics only. Bomnal’s memoir Once You Cross a Street, You’re on the Edge of a … [Read More]
Virtue That Matters: Chastity Culture and Social Power in Chosŏn Korea (1392–1910)
Virtue That Matters is a groundbreaking exploration of the intricate dynamics of chastity culture in Chosŏn Korea from 1392 to 1910, shedding light on its political, legal, social, and cultural significance. In this book, Jungwon Kim demonstrates how an emphasis on female chastity came to pervade society as it intertwined with state ideology and elite … [Read More]
The State’s Sexuality: Prostitution and Postcolonial Nation Building in South Korea
The State’s Sexuality uncovers how the lives and work of women engaged in prostitution, long considered the most abased members of society, have been strategically intertwined with the lofty purpose of building South Korea’s postcolonial nation-state. Through a complicated, contradictory patchwork of laws and regulations, which Park Jeong-Mi conceptualizes as a “toleration-regulation regime,” the South Korean … [Read More]
State, Rural Women, and Domestication in Korea: The Aspiring Middle Class
This book explores the dynamic interactions between the state and society during the industrialization of South Korea in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on rural women as a marginalized social group. By illuminating rural women’s interactions with the state and their aspirations for entering the middle class, it effectively reveals insights into the gender and … [Read More]
Mediating Gender in Post-Authoritarian South Korea
Mediating Gender in Post-Authoritarian South Korea focuses on the relationship between media representation and gender politics in South Korea. Its chapters feature notable voices of South Korea’s burgeoning sphere of gender critique enabled by social media, doing what no other academic volume has yet accomplished in the sphere of Anglophone studies on this topic. Seeking … [Read More]
The Making of Modern Subjects: Public Discourses on Korean Female Spectators in the Early Twentieth Century
Under Japanese colonial rule in the early 20th century, Korean women began to expand their realm from the domestic to the public sphere. Sung Un Gang examines how the women’s gaze was reimagined in public discourse as they began attending plays and movies, and investigates the complex negotiation process surrounding women’s public presence. As the … [Read More]
Korean Women Philosophers and the Ideal of a Female Sage: Essential Writings of Im Yungjidang and Gang Jeongildang
Korean Women Philosophers and the Ideal of a Female Sage introduces the lives and ideas of two female Korean Confucian philosophers from the late Joseon Dynasty (18th-19th century), Im Yunjidang (1721-1793) and Gang Jeongildang (1772-1832), examining how their writings contribute to contemporary philosophical inquiry. Both philosophers are known for arguing that women are as capable as … [Read More]
Women We Love: Femininities and the Korean Wave
Women We Love: Femininities and the Korean Wave is an edited volume exploring femininities in and around the Korean Wave since 2000. While studies on the Korean Wave are abundant, there is a dearth of thought put toward the female-identifying stars, characters, and fans who shape and lead this crucial cultural movement. This collection of … [Read More]
Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital
A cutting-edge journalistic exposé of self-care consumerism, using the extreme case South Korea to both celebrate the astounding growth of K-Beauty and South Korean pop culture as a global export and examine the dark implications for women in a looks-obsessed patriarchy, in a debut that asks the question: What is the future of beauty? From … [Read More]
Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea’s Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women’ s Rights Worldwide
An eye-opening firsthand account of the ongoing and trailblazing feminist movement in South Korea—one that the world should be watching. Since the beginning of the #MeToo movement, tens of thousands of people in South Korea have taken to the street, and many more brave individuals took a stand, to end a decades-long abortion ban and … [Read More]
Among Women across Worlds: North Korea in the Global Cold War
In Among Women across Worlds, Suzy Kim excavates the transnational linkages between women of North Korea and a worldwide women’s movement. Women of Asia, especially those espousing communism, are often portrayed as victims or pawns of a patriarchal Confucian state. Kim undercuts this standard analysis through detailed archival work in the international women’s press, and finds that … [Read More]
Redefining Multicultural Families in South Korea: Reflections and Future Directions
Redefining Multicultural Families in South Korea provides an in-depth look at the lives of families in Korea that include immigrants. Ten original chapters in this volume, written by scholars in multiple social science disciplines and covering different methodological approaches, aim to reinvigorate contemporary discussions about these multicultural families. Specially, the volume expands the scope of … [Read More]
Korean Teachers
Winner of the Hankyoreh Literature Award, Seo Su-jin’s debut novel follows four Korean language lecturers at Seoul’s prestigious H University over the course of an academic year. Readers will spend one season with each of the four protagonists—Seon-yi in the spring, Mi-ju in the summer, Ga-eun in the autumn, and Han-hee in the winter—getting a … [Read More]