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Asian Studies Faculty

tony d w

Tony D. Qian

Associate Professor of Asian Studies

Chair of Asian Studies

Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, Harvard University, 2017

J.D., Harvard Law School, 2013

A.B., summa cum laude, in Literature, Harvard University, 2008

Tony D. Qian specializes in the area of law and the humanities, focusing especially on East Asian law and literature from the medieval to the modern period, the relationship between literati and legal culture, and the evolution of crime fiction and legal narratives.

His doctoral dissertation, “Beyond the Formal Law: Making Cases in Roman Controversiae and Tang Literary Judgments” (2017) explores the intersection of law and rhetoric in the Roman empire and the Tang dynasty. His research also examines translations of Western cultural and literary texts in China and East Asia at the turn of the twentieth century.

Before arriving at Yonsei UIC, Professor Qian taught at Harvard, Tufts, and Seoul National University, and was a recipient of the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award, the Korea Foundation Field Research Scholarship, and the Henry Luce Early Career Fellowship in China Studies.

His current book project focuses on marriage controversies in law and fiction in late imperial China and Choson Korea.

Outlaws
Stranger Things in the Chinese Literary Tradition
The Traditional Chinese Novel: Then and Now
The Concept of Justice

Chosŏn and late imperial Chinese legal rhetoric and narratives

East Asian reception/translation of Western literature, classical Chinese literature and the vernacular novel

Confucianism and contemporary culture, crime/detective fiction

Snares of Youth: Juvenile Offenders and Popular Criminology in the Early Reform Era,” Modern China 51, no. 5 (2025): 443–75.

“Historical Moralism and the Law: Judicial Statements (panyu) in Late Imperial Civil Service  Examinations,” T’oung Pao 110 (2024): 652–84.

Qualities of Mercy: Capital Punishment and the Royal Prerogative in Familial Cases in the Chosŏn Records of Adjudications (Simnirok).” Law and Literature (published online 17 Jul 2024)

“Passion and Passio: The Chahua nü and Late Qing Courtesan Narratives,” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 35 (2023): 231–61.

“Judicial Storytelling: Marriage Controversies in a Late Ming Case Collection,” Late Imperial China 44, no. 1 (2023): 1–40.

“Translation and Proselytization: James Legge’s Novelizations of Biblical Narratives,” 《中國語文學》 92 (2023): 331–65.

“Moral Sensibilities, Emotions, and the Law: Extralegal Considerations in Tang Literary Judgments on Spousal Relationships,” T’oung Pao 104 (2018): 251–93.

“Classical Learning and the Law: Erudition as Persuasion in the Dragon Sinews, Phoenix Marrow Judgments of Zhang Zhuo,” T’ang Studies 35 (2017): 20–50.

  • tqian@yonsei.ac.kr
  • 032-749-5859
  • Veritas Hall B 425
mateja kovacic w

Mateja Kovacic

Associate Professor of Asian Studies

Ph.D. in Humanities and Creative Writing, Hong Kong Baptist University, 2016

I teach and research the intersections between science, technology, and popular culture, looking at how and what knowledge is embodied  and embedded in material artifacts and discourses of life, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, economics, and politics, while simultaneously looking at how material and conceptual worlds shape knowledge production.

I am especially interested in how knowledge derived from scientific observations of beyond-human world and indigenous epistemology help assess and reconceptualize the politics of knowledge of life through its many articulations from mutated plants to loving virtual characters.

Science of Symbiosis and Multispecies Cultures

Science, Technology, and Popular Culture

Japanese Popular Culture

Anthropology of Games and Animation

Articles

The first symbiotic multispecies robot: Gakutensoku’s symbiotic cosmos. History and Technology (2025).

Hong Kong’s Anime: A Cultural History of Japanese Animation in Hong Kong’s Last Decade. Journal of Anime and Manga Studies (2024).

Opening the West with Japanese Mermaid Mummies: Ningyo in the Making of the Theory of Evolution. In Lewis Bremner, Maro Dotulong, Sho Konishi (Eds). Reopening the Opening of Japan: Transnational Approaches to Modern Japan and the Wider World. Brill (2023).

Between Animated Cells and Animated Cels: Symbiotic Turn and Animation in Multispecies Life. Science as Culture (2023).

Regulating Sidewalk Delivery Robots as a Disruptive New Urban Technology. Mateja Kovacic, Simon Marvin, Aidan While. Urban Geography (2023).

Urban AI in China: Social Control or Hyper-Capitalist Development in the Post-Smart City? Simon Marvin, Aidan While, Bei Chen, Mateja Kovacic. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities (2022)

Making space for drones: The contested reregulation of airspace in Tanzania and Rwanda. Simon Marvin, Aidan While, Andy Lockhart, Mateja Kovacic, Nancy Odendaal, Christian Alexander. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (2021).

On Popular Idolatry: A Reflexive Symbological Spin. Hiroshi Aoyagi and Mateja Kovacic. In Idology in Transcultural Perspective: Anthropological Investigations of Popular Idolatry. Hiroshi Aoyagi, Patrick W. Galbraith, Mateja Kovacic (Eds.). Palgrave Macmillan (2021).

Cyborg in Idology Studies: Symbiosis of Animating Humans and Machines. In Idology in Transcultural Perspective: Anthropological Investigations of Popular Idolatry. Hiroshi Aoyagi, Patrick W. Galbraith, Mateja Kovacic (Eds.). Palgrave Macmillan (2021).

Urban robotic experimentation: Tokyo, Dubai and California. Simon Marvin, Aidan While Mateja Kovacic. Urban Studies (2020).

Neo-ethnic Self-styling among Young Indigenous People of Brazil: Re-appropriating Ethnicity through Cultural Hybridity. Hiroshi Aoyagi, Mateja Kovacic, Steven Baines. Vibrant 17 (2020).

The making of national robot history in Japan: Monozukuri, enculturation and cultural lineage of robots. Critical Asian Studies 50(3) (2018).

 

Books

Idology in Transcultural Perspective: Anthropological Investigations of Popular Idolatry. Hiroshi Aoyagi, Patrick W. Galbraith, Mateja Kovacic (Eds.). Palgrave Macmillan (2021).

  • mateja@yonsei.ac.kr
  • Veritas Hall B 434

Asian Studies Affiliated Faculty

seunghei clara hong w

Seunghei Clara Hong

Associate Professor of Asian/Comparative Literature

Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, University of Michigan

B.A. in English, Cornell University

  • seunghei@gmail.com
  • 032-749-3017
  • Veritas Hall B 408
michael hope w

Michael Hope

Professor of Asian History

Ph.D. in Asian Studies, Australian National University

B.A. in Politics & History, La Trobe University

Michael Hope is a historian of the Middle East and Central Asia during the Global Middle Ages. He specialises on the political and cultural history of the Mongol Empire.

Michael Hope received his doctoral degree in Asian Studies from the Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific in 2013 before spending the next year as a Research Affiliate in the same institution.

He joined Underwood International College in 2015 and is also an affiliate of the Mongolia Institute at the Australian National University and a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Historical Society.

My research has focused upon the transmission of political authority within the Mongol Empire (1206-1395). I am especially interested in the institutionalisation of authority in the form of offices, rituals, and laws after the death of Chinggis Khan.

My first book, Power, Politics, and Tradition in the Mongol Empire and the Ilkhanate of Iran (2016) provides a Weberian perspective of how the charismatic authority of Chinggis Khan was passed to his offspring and household staff. The book provides an exposition of the rising power of non-Chinggisid military families in the Mongol Middle East in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, culminating in the collapse of Chinggisid rule.

I have subsequently co-edited The Mongol World as part of the Routledge World Series and am currently working on several projects, including a monograph of the Mongol Empire, the History of Emotions, and the Chaghadai Khanate of Inner Asia.

Books

The Mongol Empire: Politics, Culture, Religion, and Legacy (New York: Bloomsbury, 2027) In production.

Co-edited with Timothy May, The Mongol World (London: Routledge, 2022).

Power, Politics and Tradition in the Mongol Empire and the Ilkhanate of Iran (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

 

Articles

“Ḥakīm Zajjājī’s Humāyūn-nāmah: An Eye-Witness Account of Early Mongol Rule in Tabriz (1220-1258),” Iranian Studies, Vol. 58, no. 2 (2025), 192-213.

“The Story of Ghazan and Nawrūz: changing narratives in the Chinggisid crisis of the fourteenth century,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 35, no 1 (2025), 111-134. 

“An ulus within an ulus: the afterlife of Ariq Böke’s appanage in the Mongol Empire (1252-1336),” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 88, no. 1 (2025), 49-69.

“A first draft of history: Nasawī’s Account of the Tatars and Early Persian historiography of the Mongol Empire,” Studia Slavica et Balcanica Petropolitana, Vol. 35, no. 1 (2024), 39-54.

“The Tamma of Azerbaijan in Regional and Imperial Contexts (1228-61),” Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. 28, no. 1 (2024), 16-29.    

“Rumors, Sedition and Personal Relationships: The Parwānah’s Conspiracy and Mongol Rule in Seljuk Anatolia (656-676 A.H./1258-1277 C.E.),” Journal of Near Eastern History, Vol. 82, No. 2 (Oct., 2023), 287-302.

“The Political Configuration of Late Ilkhanid Iran: A Case Study of the Chubanid Amirate (738-758/1337-1357),” Iran, Vol. 61, No. 2 (2023), 255-271.

 “Some remarks about the use of the term īlkhān in the historical sources and modern historiography of the Mongol Empire,” Central Asiatic Journal, Vol. 60 (2017), 273-300.

“The Pillars of State: Some Notes on the Qarachu Begs and the Kešikten in the Īl-Khānate (1256-1335),” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Apr. 2017), 181-99.

 “Some Notes on the Role of Revenge in the Mongol Empire and the Il-Khanate of Iran,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 137, No. 3 (Jun-Sept. 2016), 551-566.

“The Nawruz King: The Rebellion of Amir Nawruz in Khurasan (688-694/1289-1294) and its Implications for the Ilkhan Polity at the end of the Thirteenth Century,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 78, No. 3 (Oct. 2015) 451-473.

“The Transmission of Charismatic Authority through the Quriltais of the Early Mongol Empire and the Ilkhanate of Iran (1227-1335),” Mongolian Studies, Vol. 34 (2012), 87-116.

 

 Book Chapters

“The Path to a Fine City: Population displacement and urban revival in Herat after the Mongol Conquest (1220-1).” From the Steppes to the Sea: A Festschrift for Paul D. Buell in Celebration of his 80th Birthday, edited by Timothy May (Leiden: Brill, Forthcoming).

“El and Bulqa: Between order and chaos in the formative years of the Mongol Empire (1206-1259).” A Companion to Crime and Deviance in the Middle Ages. Edited by Hannah Skoda (Amsterdam: Arc Humanities Press, 2023).

“The atābaks in the Mongol Empire and the Īlkhānate of Iran (602-736/1206-1335),” New Approaches to Ilkhanid History, edited by Timothy May, Bayarsaikhan Dashdondog, and Christopher P. Atwood (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 321-345.

  

Encyclopedia Entries

 “Bukhara under the Mongols.” Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Asian History. (NY: Oxford University Press, 2019). http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.8.

“Inju Dynasty,” “Muzaffarids Iran,” “Jalāyirids,” “Abū Saʿīd Bahadūr Khān,” “Banū Faḍlawayh,” Encyclopaedia of Islam. Third Edition (Leiden: Brill, 2018-2022).

“Abagha,” “Baiju,” “Il-Khanate,” “Inju,” “Karachi Begs,” “Oljeitu,” “Quriltai,” “Sultaniyya,” “The Rise of the Mongol Empire,” “The Fall of the Mongol Empire.” The Mongol Empire: A Historical Encyclopaedia, Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO (2016).

 

Review Articles

“Marriage and Power in Mongol Eurasia: A History of the Chinggisid Sons-in-Law,” Monumenta Serica, Vol. 72, No 1 (2024), 199-302.

Women in the Social, Political and Economic History of the Mongol Empire, The English Historical Review, Vol. 136, No. 581 (Aug. 2021), 986-1002.

Review of Andrew C. S. Peacock, Islam, Literature and Society in Mongol Anatolia for The American Historical Review, Vol. 126, No. 1 (2021), 421-22.

Review of Stefan Kamola, Making Mongol History: Rashid al-Din and the Jami‘ al-Tawarikh for Journal of Islamic Studies, Vol. 32, No. 3 (2021), 408-11.

Review of Ali Anooshahr, Turkestan and the Rise of Eurasian Empires: A Study of Politics and Invented Traditions for The English Historical Review, Vol. 135, No. 572 (2020), 190-92.

Review of George Lane, A Short History of the Mongols for The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 78, No. 3 (Aug. 2019), 652-53.

Review of Robert Gleave and István T. Kristó-Nagy, Violence in Islamic Thought from the Qurʻān to the Mongols for Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context for Situations, Vol. 9, No. 1 (2016), 93-7.

Review of Patrick Wing, The Jalayirids for Mongolian Studies, Vol. 37 (2015).

Review of Thomas Allsen, The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History for The Journal of Global History, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2007), 122-23.

 

Selected Presentations

‘”I belong to Temüjin:” slavery in the Mongol Empire,’ Geopolitics, Migrations and Identities in Central Eurasia: Joint Meeting of CESS- ESCAS, University of Lisbon, January 7-11, 2025.

‘Death and Regicide in the Mongol Empire: A Study of the Limitations of Royal Power,’ 2nd Congress on the History of Turkic Statehood, Almaty, October 4-6, 2024.

‘From Foes to Familiars: The Evolution of the Mongols in the Historiography of Iran,’ Fourteenth Biennial Iranian Studies Conference, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, August 12-15, 2024.

‘The Role of Emotions in the Iranian Histories of the Mongol Empire,’ Central Eurasian Studies Society Annual Conference, University of Pittsburgh, October 19-22, 2023.

‘The Story of Malik Timur and the Afterlife of Ariq Böke’s ordus in Central Asia (1263-1315),’ The Golden Horde Empire (Ulus of Jochi) and Ulytau, Zhezqazghan, Sept 2023.

‘What were princely estates for? A study of Hülegüid Viceroys (1261-1297),’ Tenth European Conference of Iranian Studies. Leiden University, August 21-25, 2023.

‘The Rebellion of the Amir al-‘umara: A Recurring Tragedy in Ilkhanid Historiography.’ International Conference – Great Chinggisid Crisis: History, Context, Aftermath. University of Bonn, May 11-13, 2023.

‘The Revival of Diyar Bakr: Early Mongol Rule in South Eastern Anatolia.’ St. Petersburg International Congress on International Relations. St. Petersburg State University, Nov. 10-12, 2022.

‘From Fear to Awe: Finding Feeling in the Persian Histories of the Mongol Empire.’ Going Places: Mobility, Migration, Exile, Space and Emotions. Third Biennial Conference of the Society for the History of Emotions. University of Florence, Aug. 30 – Sep. 2, 2022.

‘Bilig and Ilm: Knowledge and Power in the Mongol Empire and the Ilkhanate.’ Serving the Khan: Power, Loyalty and Ideology in the Mongol World, Leiden University, Feb. 18-19, 2020.

‘The Wisdom of Royal Glory: The Oral Transmission of Knowledge at Mongol Quriltai Ceremonies,’ Classicising Learning, Performance, and Power: Eurasian Perspectives from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period, The University of Edinburgh, Dec. 12-14, 2019.

‘The atābaks in the Mongol Empire and the Īlkhānate of Iran,’ Annual Yuan Studies Society Conference, Nanjing University, Nov. 15-18, 2019.

‘The Parwāna’s Conspiracy: A Reconstruction of Mu’īn al-Dīn Parwāna’s Rebellion against Mongol Rule in Anatolia (675/1277),’ KAMS ICMS, Jeju University, Nov. 1-3, 2019.

Panel Chair, “The Mongols’ Role and Contributions in the Global History of Distilled Liquors,” 15th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia, Chonbuk National University, Aug. 19-23, 2019.

“Mongols and Tughluqids: The Mongol Diaspora in the Delhi Sultanate (1320-1413),” 2019 Yuan Shangdu International Conference on Grassland Silk Road in the New Era, Zhenlan Banner, Jul. 21-24, 2019.

‘Bulqa and Üile: Chaos and Obligation in the Formative Years of the Mongol Empire (1206-1259),’ Central Eurasian Studies Society Conference, University of Pittsburgh, Oct. 24-8, 2018.

‘The Korean Peninsula and the Mongol Empire in Comparative Perspective,’ Royal Asiatic Society Korea Lecture Series, Somerset Palace, 18th of September, 2018.

‘The Road to Damascus: Population Mobility and Urban Revival after the Mongol Conquests,’ Cross-Cultural Contacts during the Period of Pax Mongolica, Ewha Women’s University, 23-4 October, 2017.

“From Herat to Haleb: A Comparative Analysis of Population Displacement and Urban Revival After the Mongol Conquests,” 18th Central Eurasian Studies Society Conference, University of Washington, 5-8th of October, 2017.

Panel Chair, “Digital Humanities and Yuan Studies: Expanding Methodological Boundaries in Asian History,” AAS in Asia Conference, ‘Asia in Motion: Beyond Borders and Boundaries,’ Korea University, 24-27th of June 2017.

“The Shāh-nāmah tradition in the historiography of the Ilkhanate (1258-1335),” 17th Central Eurasian Studies Society Conference, Princeton University, 3-6th of November 2016.

“Some remarks on the use of the title Ilkhan in the Arabic and Persian sources of the 14th and 15th centuries,” 11th International Congress of International Association of Mongolian Studies, 15-18th of August 2016.

  • michael.hope@yonsei.ac.kr
  • 032-749-3601
  • Veritas Hall B 429
inhye han w

Inhye Han

Lecturer

Ph.D., Comparative Literature, University of California, San Diego

Inhye Han’s research and teaching explore East Asian literature, film, and media, with a focus on transnational and transcolonial narrative cultures.

Before joining UIC, she served as a Research Professor at the Ewha Institute for the Humanities.

“The Good, the Bad, the Weird Revisited: On Visual-Verbal Disjunction and the Specter of the Unknowable Subject.” Journal of International Culture 18.1: 473-505. (June 2025)

“Paek Ch’ol’s Translation and Stage Adaptation of Michael Gold’s “120 Million”: Sprechchor for the Materialist Dialectic.” Acta Koreana 28.1:53-78. (June 2025)      

“Anime at the Forefront of Contrastatism: Millenium Actress and Paprika.” The Journal of Sŏgang Humanities 71:451-480 (December 2024)

“Under- and Hyper-reading in Joint Security Area and Decision to Leave.” Soonchunhyang Journal of Humanities 43.3: 59-92. (September 2024)

“Undoing the Nation-State-Capital Trinity: Turning Inagaki’s Petition into a Korean Playwright’s Taiwan.” positions: asia critique 32.2: 233-258. (May 2024; opening article)

“Saving Chinese Laborers from Sinophobia: Sino-Korean, Born-Translated Literature.” International Journal of Asian Studies 20.2: 895-911. (July 2023)

  • ifinahan@yonsei.ac.kr
howard kahm w

Howard Kahm

Associate Professor

Ph.D., Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California – Los Angeles, 2012

M.A., East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California – Los Angeles, 2005

B.A., History and Asian Studies, Williams College, 1997

Topics in Modern Korean History

Topics in Asian Economic History

Topics in Global Innovation

Research Design and Quantitative Methods (RDQM)

World History

Eastern Civilization

Books

Koryosa: The History of Koryo, The Annals of the Kings, 918-1095, edited by Howard Kahm, John B. Duncan, Lee Junghoon, Park Jongki, and Edward J. Shultz (University of Hawai’i Press, 2024)

Koryosa: The History of Koryo, The Annals of the Kings, 1095-1170, edited by Howard Kahm, John B. Duncan, Lee Junghoon, Park Jongki, and Edward J. Shultz (University of Hawai’i Press, forthcoming 2026)

Articles

“Playing with Power: American Businesspeople, Diplomacy, and Electricity in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Korea,” co-authored with Hanmee Na Kim, Journal of Korean Studies 29-1 (2024): 3-32

“A Capital Idea: Social and Economic Implications of Ritual Space in Kaegyong during the Early Koryo Period,” co-authored with Sinwoo Lee, Journal of Asian History 56 (2022): 27-52

“Begging for Rain: Economic and Social Effects of Climate in the Early Koryo Period,” co-authored with Dennis Lee, Journal of Korean Studies 26-1 (2021): 3-23

“Selling Smiles: Emotional Labor and Labor-Management Relations in 1930s Colonial Korea Department Stores,” co-authored with Jinseok Oh, Journal of Korean Studies 23-1 (2018): 3-24

“Teaching Democracy: The Discourse of Democracy and Education Reforms under the American Military Occupation of Korea, 1945-1948,” Acta Koreana 20-2 (2017): 529-561

“Road to School: Primary School Participation in Korea, 1911-1960,” co-authored with Dae Hyung Woo, Journal of American-East Asian Relations 24 (2017): 184-208

“Between Empire and Nation: A Micro-Historical Approach to Japanese Repatriation and the Korean Economy During the American Occupation of Korea, 1945-1948,” Journal of Contemporary History 51-1 (2016): 124-144

“Sovereignty and Central Banking: Evidence from the East Asian Region in the Early 1900s,” co-authored with Sung Jun Park, Global Economic Review 44-2 (2015): 167-183

“Making Real Men: Male Celebrities and Socioeconomic Narratives of Mandatory Military Service in South Korea,” Journal of Korean Studies (forthcoming 2027)

“Cleared for Takeoff: The Economic and Environmental History of Incheon International Airport in 1990s South Korea,” Journal of Korean Studies (forthcoming 2026)

 Book Chapters

“‘They couldn’t let us profit, it wouldn’t be civilized’: Economic Modalities and Core-Periphery Relationships in the Political Economy of Firefly-Serenity” in Firefly Revisited: Essays on Joss Whedon’s Classic Series, edited by Michael Goodrum and Philip Smith (Rowman & Littlfield, 2015), 155-170

  • hkahm@yonsei.ac.kr
  • 02-2123-3960
  • Daewoo Annex Hall 306
sophie yeonhee kim w

Sophie Yeonhee Kim

Lecturer

Ph.D. in Political Science, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM) 

B.A. in Political Science and Japanese, Vassar College, USA

 

Loyola International College, Sogang University (2025 – 2026)

Graduate School of International Studies, Sogang University (Fall 2025)

Global Academy for Future Civilizations, Kyung Hee University (July 2025)

Ministry of Unification – Institute for Far Eastern Studies (MOU-IFES) Fellowship: Academic Exchange Support Program for North Korea and Unification Studies, Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Kyungnam University (2024)

Department of Political Science, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (2014-2021)

I am a Lecturer at Underwood International College, Yonsei University, where I teach courses on North Korean politics and democracy in South Korea. My research explores the intersection of aesthetics, politics, and mediation in East Asia, examining how technologies, visual culture, and postcolonial legacies shape inter-Korean relations and regional geopolitics.

I am currently completing my book manuscript, Aesthetic Encounters: Politics of Korean Estrangement, which theorizes estrangement as both the constitutive condition of modern inter-Korean politics and the ontological residue of postcolonial modernity. The project examines the Korean division as a site where global failures of mediation—diplomatic, cultural, and epistemic—become visible, revealing how colonial mediations persist under the guise of liberal peace and globalization.

My research is informed by activist-scholarship developed through work with Korean women and transnational peace movements addressing the legacies of the Korean War, as well as with South Korean civic organizations focused on confidence-building and dialogue with North Korea.

My work has been supported by the Ministry of Unification and the Institute for Far Eastern Studies. Forthcoming publications include “North Korea in International Politics” for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies and a bilingual version of “Archipelagic Encounters: Zainichi Identity, Diasporic Belonging, and Relational Ontology in The Seas,” an essay in collaboration with film director Im Heung Soon’s exhibition “Memorial Showers,” forthcoming in Hyunsil Munhwa (South Korean Art Press).

Inter-Korean Relations
North Korea
Diplomacy and Mediation
Critical International Relations
Geopolitics
Aesthetic and Postcolonial Theory

Executive Committee Member, Peace and Disarmament Center, People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) (2025)

Regional Coordinator, Korea Peace Now! Women Mobilizing to End the War, Women Cross DMZ (2020)

Underwood International College, Yonsei University

North Korea: History, Politics, and Culture

Democracy in South Korea

 

Graduate School of International Studies, Sogang University

Introduction to Contemporary Japan

 

Global Academy for Future Civilizations, Kyung Hee University

Modern Korea Geopolitics

 

Loyola International College, Sogang University

International Relations Theory

 

Department of Political Science, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (2014-2021)

Introduction to Political Science

Politics of Film

History of Political Thought

Political Philosophy and Theory

Topics in America – Racism and Capitalism

American Politics

Global Politics/Comparative

“North Korea’s Armed Peace: Strategic Realignment and Regional Implications.” Critical Asia Archives: Events and Theories, February 17, 2025. Link

“GC 2025, 글로벌 과제와 한반도 현실 묻다.” 대학주보, July 22, 2025. Link

“분열된 세계 속 북한의 새로운 전략 구상 – 북러 협정 1주년을 맞이하며.” Korea Times, July 15, 2025. Link

“Beyond 70 Years of Armed Peace—Korea Peace Now!” International Journal of Korean Unification Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2020): 25–56. https://doi.org/10.33728/ijkus.2020.29.1.002

“Time to End America’s 70-Year War with North Korea.” Honolulu Civil Beat, with Harrison Kim and Christine Ahn (2020). Link

  • yeonkim808@gmail.com
  • 010-5062-8109
astrid lac w

Astrid Lac

Associate Professor of Comparative Literature

Ph.D. East Asian Studies (Modern Japanese Literature), Princeton University

I am a comparatist in a broad sense, interested in fundamental antagonistic structures that define diverse cultural paradigms and symptoms; how particular instances manifest the same trouble or, put inversely, attempt to address it differently. My research and teaching to date have pursued three concurrent trajectories, in modern and contemporary Japanese literature, psychoanalysis, and contemporary popular culture with a focus on cinema. These interests often intersect at such key problematics as (post)colonial modernity, gender and sexuality, and global technological postmodernity. Before coming to UIC, I was an Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow at New York University and a Fulbright-Hays Fellow at Gakushuin University, Tokyo.

Inter-Korean Relations
North Korea
Diplomacy and Mediation
Critical International Relations
Geopolitics
Aesthetic and Postcolonial Theory

I teach mainly in two course categories: “World Literature” and “UIC Seminar.” The following are the titles of some of the courses I have taught in recent years.

“Reading The Tale of Genji”
“Lars von Trier’s Women”
“Jacques Lacan and Popular Culture (through Slavoj Zizek)”
“Freud’s Case Histories”
“Mishima Yukio: between Philosophical Rebel and Literary Genius”
“Murakami Haruki and His Contemporaries”
“‘Postfeminism’: Gender and Sexuality in Cinema”
“Family, from Youth to Death: East Asian Cinematic Perspectives”
“Love, Psychoanalytically Speaking”
“Freud: from Hysteria to the Oedipus Complex”
“Antithesis to Now: from Slavoj Zizek to Russell Brand”
“Camus, Duras, Sartre”

“Man without Woman: The Sexual Relationship in the Postmodern Era,” in Murakami Haruki and Our Years of Pilgrimage, edited by Gitte Marianne Hansen and Michael Tsang. Routledge, 2021.

“Freud between Two Philosophies, or Psychoanalytical Transdisciplinarity.” Tamkang Review 51:2. Tamkang University Press, Taiwan.

“From National History to Subject in Writing: Reading the Colonial Korean Poet Yoon Dong-ju with the Zainichi Korean Writer Yi Yang-ji.” Postcolonial Text 15:1. Open Humanities Press.

“Difference, Trauma, and Affect: Accounting for Literary Desire in Psychoanalysis,” in Knots: Post-Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Literature and Film, edited by Jean-Michel Rabaté. Routledge. 2020.

“Losing Melancholia: Between Object, Fidelity, and Theory.” Cultural Critique 102. University of Minnesota Press.

“Community by Death: Mishima, Bataille, and Metaphysics of the Flesh.” Comparative Literature Studies 54:2. Penn State University Press.

“Becoming Mad Bio-graphically: The Styling Body in Modern Japanese Literature.” Comparative Literature 66:4. Duke University Press.

“The Other’s Style: Text and Power in Early Twentieth-Century Japanese Literature.” Imaginaires 18. Éditions et Presses Universitaires de Reims, France.

  • alac@yonsei.ac.kr
  • 032-749-3039
  • Veritas Hall B 407
helen j.s. lee w

Helen J. S. Lee

Associate Professor at Underwood International College

Ph.D. in Modern Japanese Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2003.
Dissertation Title: Popular Media and the Racialization of Koreans under Japanese Occupation

M.A. in Asian Studies, Cornell University, 1993

B.A. in Japanese Studies, Washington University, St Louis, 1991

Helen J. S. Lee is a professor of modern Japanese literature and postcolonial studies. Her research has primarily focused on Japan’s empire, with a particular focus on settler communities in colonial territories. She has published with positions: asia critique (2009 & 2013) and the Journal of Japanese Literature and language (2007, 2011, 2016 & 2019). She is also a co-editor of Reading Colonial Japan: Text, Context and Critique (Stanford University Press, 2012). Her current project deals with children, both Japanese and non-Japanese, within Japan’s empire, and their kokugo  compositions.

Lower-Division

Eastern Civilization

World Literature: Modern Japanese Literature

World Literature: Postwar Japanese Literature

World History: Japanese History

Special Topics in Asian Studies

 Upper-Division

Culture, Media, and the Politics of Beauty

Japan’s Modern Empire

Japanese Culture

Masculinities, Modernities, and Men

Postcolonial Theories in East Asia

Reading Colonial Japan

Visual Culture

Graduate Seminar

Texts and Popular Culture

Books

포위된 평화, 굴절된 전쟁기억 Besieged Peace, Refracted War Memory: A Study of Kure, the Naval Port of Hiroshima Bay, co-authored by Keun Sik Jung, Helen J.S. Lee, Young Shin Jung and Min Hwan Kim,  (P’owidoen p’yonghwa, kulj?ldoen ch?njaeng ki?k: Hiroshima man ?i kunhang tosi kurye y?ngu), J&C Publishing, May, 2015.  

Reading Colonial Japan: Text, Context, and Critique, Stanford University Press, February 2012. Co-edited with Michele M. Mason 

 

Articles in English

“Living as a Colonial Girl: The Sony? (少女) Discourse of School Curriculum and Newspapers in 1930s Korea,” co-author with Shin Kyungsook (forthcoming), International Journal of Asian Studies, July 2020.

 “Little Citizens, Big Missions in Manchuria: The Shōkokumin as Imperial Pedagogy,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, vol. 20 no. 3, September 2019.

“Binding Perceptions: Images of Korea in Japanese Colonial Documentary Photography,” The Review of Korean Studies, Vol., No. 1, June 2019.

“Cultural Assimilation in the Kokugo (語)Classroom: Colonial Korean Children’s Tsuzurikata (綴り方) Compositions from the early 1930s,” Japanese Literature and Language, Vol., No.1, April 2019.

“Unending Stories of the Battleship Yamato: Narrating the Past, Creating a Phantom,” Japanese Literature and Language, Vol. 50, No.2, Oct 2016.

“Negotiating Imagined Imperial Kinship: Affects and Comfort Letters of Korean Children,” The Review of Korean Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1, June 2014.

“Dying as Daughter of the Empire,” positions: asia critique, Vol.21, Issue 1, Spring 2013.

“Out of Sōdesuka-shi, Creating Yobo-san: Cartooning the Korean Other in Japan’s Colonial Discourse,” Journal of Japanese Language and Literature, Vol 45, Issue 1, April 2011.

“Writing Colonial Relations of Everyday Life in Senryō” positions: east asia cultures critique, Vol. 16, Issue 3, Winter 2008.

“Voices of the “Colonists,” Voices of the “Immigrants:” “Korea” in Japan’s Early Colonial Travel Narratives and Guides, 1894-1914,” Japanese Literature and Language, Spring 2007.

 

Articles in Korean

“여성의 몸, 그리고 국가권력: 시신정치(necropolitics)와 죽음의 작업을 중심으로,” 일본학, 2019.

“이회성의 「다듬이질하는 여인」과 나카가미 켄지의 『미사키』를 통해 보는 ‘마이노리티’와 장소론,” 동악어문학회, 2017

“일본문학에서 자이니치(在日) 읽기:오다 마코토(小田?)의 ??アボジ?を踏む?가 제시하는 아버지, 그리고 고향,” 일본학, 2015.

“우생학 담론에서 배제의 논리: 이케대 시게노리의 우생운동 (Ikeda Shigenori’s Eugenic Elimination: Biopower in Eugenics Movement),” 일본역사연구 (The Journal of Japanese History), Vol. 26, December, 2012.

“나카지마 아츠시의 조선소설: 식민지 도시공간 ‘경성’을 중심으로 (Nakajima Atsushi’s Fictional Creation of Colonial Kyungsung),” Korean Studies, Vol. 28, October, 2012.

“제국의 교실, 그 안팎에서 (Imperial Classrooms and Its Borders), “ 일본학 (Japan Studies), Vol. 30, Dong’guk University, May, 2010.

“전함 야마토의 유령들: 전함, 대중문화, 그리고 대중기억의 형성 (Phantoms of the Battleship Yamato: The Battleship, Pop Culture, and Making of Popular Memory),” 일본 비평 (Japan Critique), Issue 2, Seoul National University, February 2010.

  • helenlee@yonsei.ac.kr
  • 02-2123-3587
  • Daewoo Annex Hall 403
thomas quartermain w

Thomas Quartermain

Assistant Professor of History

D.Phil. in Oriental Studies, The University of Oxford, Wolfson College

M.St. in Korean Studies, The University of Oxford, Wolfson College

M.A. in Korean Studies, Korea University

B.A. in International Relations, California State University

Thomas Quartermain received his doctorate in Oriental Studies at Oxford University in 2016 and was awarded a Korea Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship at King’s College, University of Western Ontario from 2016 to 2017. Before coming to Yonsei, Dr. Quartermain had previously researched at the Asiatic Research Institute (Korea University) and worked at Endicott College and the Georgia Institute of Technology. His dissertation and current research investigate changes in Joseon Korean politics and society during the reigns of Kings Seonjo, Gwanghae’gun and Injo. In addition, he has continued to research aspects of pre-modern identity and international politics in NE Asia with a focus on Joseon Korea and Qing China. Dr. Quartermain joined the UIC faculty in the Spring of 2020 teaching courses on pre-19th century Korean history and post-17th century Chinese history.

World History Group I: Foundations of Pre-Modern Korea

World History Group II: Foundations of Modern China

AS LHP: Topics in Chinese History (Socio-Political Identity in China)

History and Memory in East Asia

(A&HCI/SCOPUS/KCI) “Review of Human-Animal Relations and the Hunt in Korea and Northeast Asia.” [Book Review] Journal of Asian Studies. Summer 2025.

(A&HCI/SCOPUS/KCI) “Time and the Weather: The Issue of Analyzing Climatic Data from Yi Sunsin’s Wartime Diary.” Acta Koreana. Winter 2024.

“Two Perspectives on the Land, State and the Environment in Pre-Modern and Modern Korea” [Book Review] The Journal of Northeast Asian History, vol. 20, no. 1, Winter 2023, pp. 189-206.

(KCI) “America Dreams of Modern Chinese Empire: Modern Superpowers, Nation-States and the Imperial Past.” The Journal of Peace Studies, vol. 23, no. 4, 2022, pp. 93-113.

(SCOPUS/KCI) “State Symbols, Group Identity and Communal Memory in Jeong Gyeong-un’s Godae illok, 1592-1598.” The Review of Korean Studies, vol. 22, no. 2, 2019, pp. 65-86.

(A&HCI/SCOPUS/KCI) “Besieged on a Frozen Mountain Top: Opposing Records of the Second Manchu Invasion, 1636-1637.” Acta Koreana, vol.21, no. 1, 2018, pp. 137-167. doi:10.18399/acta.2018.21.1.006

(ECI/IESSA) “China and Europe: Energy Competition and Cooperation.” In China and Europe: Fostering Mutual Understanding (European Journal of Sinology Special Issues 1), edited by Luigi Moccia and Martin Woesler, pp. 311-336. Bochum: European University Press, 2014.

Recent Presentations and Work

Visiting Scholar at Wolfson College, The University of Oxford (July 1st 2025 – August 31st, 2025 and July 1st, 2023 – August 31st, 2023)

“Choson Climatic Variations as seen in Diaries: Quantifying the Qualitative Past” at the 32nd Association of Korean Studies in Europe (AKSE) Conference 2025, Edinburgh, June 19th-22nd 2025

Discussant for Digital Methodologies for Decoding Kumgangsan’s Rock Inscriptions, Korean Studies in the Digital Era, Daegu, South Korea, May 2nd-3rd 2024

 “The Blind Watchmaker? Self-Perpetuation and Government Funding of Korean Studies” at The Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea, February 6th, 2023

 “The Sajik 社稷 of Joseon: Shrines of the Capital and Provinces” at Keimyung International Conference on Korean Studies, Daegu, South Korea, October 29th, 2022.

 “For Nation, State and King?: Debating Patriotism during the Japanese Invasions of Korea, 1592-1598” with the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch and HASS/Asian Studies Lecture at Yonsei University, March 23, 2022 [online].

 

  • tquartermain@yonsei.ac.kr
  • 032-749-3031
  • Veritas Hall B 409
jeffrey robertson w

Jeffrey Robertson

Associate Professor of Diplomatic Studies

Ph.D. in Diplomatic Studies, Australian National University

M.Def.S, Australian Defence Force Academy, UNSW

B.A. (Hons) in Russian and French Studies, University of Auckland

Jeffrey Robertson is an Associate Professor at Yonsei University. Before academia, he worked for the Australian Government in the field of diplomacy, foreign policy, and North Asia. His research interests include the diplomatic practice and foreign policy of middle powers with a focus on North Asia and the Korean Peninsula. With more than 25 years operational and analytical experience as an international relations practitioner, at UIC he teaches freshman research methods. He updates research and policy work at https://junotane.com.

  • jeffrey.robertson@yonsei.ac.kr
  • 032-749-3018
  • Veritas Hall B 404
huasha zhang w

Huasha Zhang

Assistant Professor of Asian History

Ph.D. in History, Yale University

M.A. in East Asian Studies, Columbia University

B.L. in Political Science and BA in History, Peking University

Huasha Zhang (she/they) is a historian of the places, peoples, and communities dwelling on the Sino-Tibetan frontiers between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Her doctoral dissertation, “Our Kind of Tibetans: The Life and Times of Liu Manqing, 1906–1942” (2019), explores the shifting ethnic, cultural, and gender dynamics on the politically and socially mercurial Sino-Tibetan frontiers from the perspective of Liu Manqing, a female politician with both Chinese and Tibetan ethnic and cultural heritage. Professor Zhang is currently working on the collaboration and competition between non-Han politicians in the transformation of China’s ethnic policies over the first half of the twentieth century.

“Left to their own devices: Radio, radiomen and radio stations in the making of Tibet’s modern political landscape,” Past & Present, 2024.

“Warrior Monk: Guns, Grenades, and the Rise of the Ninth Panchen Lama on Sino–Mongol–Tibetan Frontiers, 1924–1937,” Critical Asian Studies, 2022.

“Zhuang Xueben and the Ninth Panchen Lama’s Final Journey,” Critical Asian Studies, 2022.

“The Sedan Chair vs. the Steamboat: The Sichuan Route and the Maritime Route in the making of modern Sino-Tibetan relations,” Modern Asian Studies, 2022.

“Orphans of the Empire: Lhasa’s Chinese Community from the Qing Era to the Early Twentieth Century,” Modern China, 2022.

Yonsei University Outstanding Teaching Award, 2023
Yonsei University Outstanding Teaching Award, 2022
Yonsei University Outstanding Teaching Award, 2021

  • huashazhang@yonsei.ac.kr
jin bae chung w

Jin-bae Chung

Professor of Chinese Literature (Retired)

Ph.D. UCLA 

B.A. Yonsei University

  • cjby@yonsei.ac.kr
  • 02-2123-2291
jaeyoun won w

Jaeyoun Won

Professor of Sociology

Ph.D. Sociology, University of California, Berkeley

M.A. Sociology, University of California, Berkeley

M.A. Sociology, Yonsei University

B.A. Sociology, Yonsei University

Jaeyoun Won holds a Ph.D. degree in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia, and a visiting scholar at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, National Taiwan University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Academy of Social Science, and Northeast Normal University. His publications include “Withering Away of Iron Rice Bowl?: The Reemployment Project of Post-Socialist China,” “The Making of the Post-Proletariat in China,” and “Post-Socialist China: Labour Relations in Korean-Managed Factories.” He also co-edited and contributed to a book, Laid-off Workers in a Workers’ State: Unemployment with Chinese Characteristics (Palgrave Macmillan). His research focuses on citizenship and work politics in East Asia, particularly post-socialist transformation in China and North Korea.

UIC

CC :  Sociological Imagination, Topics in Social Theory
ASD: Power and Marginality in Post-Socialist China
PSIR: Political Economy of China

 

Sociology

Comparative East Asian Studies
Other Modernities in East Asia
Modern Sociological Theory

  • jywon@yonsei.ac.kr
  • 02-2123-2422
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