2023-2025 Korea Foundation Visiting Lecturer
email: sohyekim@hku.hk
Research
I received my Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 2019. Following that, I served as a Weinberg Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University from 2019 to 2021, where I taught courses on Korean cinema, culture, and literature. Before joining the University of Hong Kong, I worked as a research professor at the Outreach Center for Korean Linguistic, Literary, and Cultural Studies at Korea University.
My research interests focus on Korean and East Asian films of diaspora, as well as transnational East Asian cinema and independent film movements. My work-in-progress manuscript, entitled “Beyond Longing and Belonging: The Cinematic Interplay between the Nation and its Diaspora in South Korea,” situates Korean diaspora films within the broader context of East Asian cultural production during the long twentieth century. It also examines the cinematic mobility of the Korean diaspora in the post-Cold War era, exploring how these films affect, subvert, and transform both national and transnational conceptions of Korean cinema.
In addition to my academic pursuits, I have been actively involved in the Korean independent film scene as a programmer, organizer, and moderator at various film festivals. Most recently, I organized exhibitions and forums focusing on the films of Koreans in Japan at the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival.
Teaching
At the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and Korea University, I have taught a diverse range of courses covering Korean literature, film, culture, history, and language. The Korean humanities courses I have led delve into topics beyond Korean culture and media, extending to questions of migration, multiculturalism, civil society, democratization, and gender issues in Korea.
Education
PhD East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago
MA Cinema Studies, Korea National University of Arts
BA Education, Korea University
Selected Publications
2022 “The Conundrum of Global Korean Culture: On Squid Game,” Hallyu! The Korean Wave, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2022, 86-91.
2022 “The Inside and Outside of Minor Feelings: The Distribution and Restructuring of Minor Feelings in Narrative Works by Korean Americans”, Yŏsŏng Munhak Yŏn’gu 56 (2022): 50-81. [in Korean]
2019 “Questioning Authenticity: On the Documentary Film Reclaiming Our Names,” Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture 12 (2019): 335-363.
2017 “Over the Im/permeable Boundaries: Cinematization of Nianchan in South Korea and Japan,” International Journal of Korean History 22, no. 1: 179-187.
Courses 2024/25
KORE1021 Introduction to Korean Studies
KORE2024 Korean Studies I
KORE2026 Topics in Korean culture and society
Contact
Tel. (852) 3917 7324
Office: 10.50 Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU