Joo Ok Kim
International & Interdisciplinary Studies - American StudiesRoom 213K
Joo Ok Kim is assistant professor of American Studies and Latina/o Studies at the University of Kansas. She is associate faculty at KU’s Center for East Asian Studies, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the Latinx Studies Initiative, and currently serves as CLAS Leadership for Equity Fellow (2017-18). Professor Kim earned her Ph.D. in Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of California, San Diego, her M.A. in English at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and her B.A. in English at KU. From 2013-15, Professor Kim was UC President's Postdoctoral Fellow in Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Her interdisciplinary research and teaching interests focus on race and the Korean War, Latina/o studies, Asian American studies, transpacific and transnational studies, and literary and cultural studies. Her book project, Warring Genealogies: Race, Kinship, and the Korean War, examines the racial legacies of the Korean War through Chicano cultural production and U.S. archives of white supremacy. Her work can be found in the Journal of Asian American Studies, Verge: Studies in Global Asias (forthcoming), and south: a scholarly journal (forthcoming). Professor Kim’s research has been funded by the Ford Foundation, the University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, and the American Philosophical Society.
Education
Ph.D., Literature, University of California-San Diego
M.A., English, University of Illinois-Chicago
B.A., English, University of Kansas
Research
My research examines the racial legacies of the Korean War through literature and culture.
Research Interests
- Korean War
- Latina/o Studies
- Asian American Studies
- Transpacific and Transnational Studies
- Empire
- Gender and Sexuality
- Literary and Cultural Studies
- Popular Culture
- Prison Studies
Selected Publications
Kim, Joo Ok. "“Declining Misery: Rural Florida’s Hmong and Korean Farmers”." south: a scholarly journal (UNC Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press) 49.1. 25-37.
Kim, Joo Ok. "“‘Training Guatemalan Campesinos to Work Like Korean Peasants’: Taxonomies and Temporalities of East Asian Labor Management in Latin America”." Verge: Studies in Global Asias (Pennsylvania State University: University of Minnesota) 3.2 Forthcoming.
Kim, Joo Ok. "Sleuth Cities: East L.A., Seoul, and Military Mysteries in Martin Limón’s Slicky Boys and The Wandering Ghost." Journal of Asian American Studies 17.2 (2014): 199-228.
Selected Presentations
(11/30/2017). “The Factory is My University: Unruly Discipline from the Transpacific Maquiladora to North Korean Magazines”. Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association. Chicago, Illinois. Available Here
(07/31/2017). “Managing Anxieties: East Asian and Latin American Orbitals of Labor Management.”. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Conference. Seoul, Republic of Korea. Available Here
(04/15/2017). “Reunification Dreams: 1970s North Korea and Speculations of Kinship in Chicano Fiction”. The 3rd Biennial Latina/o Literary Theory & Criticism Conference. New York, New York. Available Here
(03/23/2017). “Nuclear Dreams: Chicano Fiction and Speculations of Kinship in North Korea”. Annual Meeting of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies. Irvine, California. Available Here
Kim, J. (07/31/2016). “‘Training Guatemalan Campesinos to Work Like Korean Peasants’: Taxonomies and Temporalities of Labor Management”. Latina/o Studies Association Conference. Pasadena, California. Available Here
Kim, J. (04/30/2016). “Made in Guatemala, Made in L.A.: Unraveling Korean-Owned Garment Industries in Fiction and Film” . Annual Meeting of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies. Denver, Colorado. Available Here
Kim, J. (01/31/2016). “Going After Iraq: Fragmented Disasters in U.S. Multiethnic Graphic Novels”. American University of Beirut, 6th International Conference of the Center for American Studies and Research. Beirut, Lebanon. Available Here
(10/31/2015). “Declining Misery: Remaking the Southern Gothic with Rural Florida’s Hmong and Korean
Farmers”
. Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association. Toronto, Canada. Available Here
(04/30/2015). “Amidst Citrus Empires: Hmong and Korean Farmers in Rural Florida” . Annual Meeting of the
Association of Asian American Studies
. Chicago/Evanston, IL. Available Here
(11/30/2014). “‘My Oriental eyes look out’: Revisioning Orientalisms in Rudolfo Anaya’s Journals and Mario
Acevedo’s Comics”. Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association. Los Angeles, CA. Available Here
Kim, J. (04/11/2014 - 04/13/2014). Carceral Kinships of the Korean War in Leavenworth Penitentiary’s The New Era. Annual Academic Retreat of the UC President’s and Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Programs. Lake Arrowhead, CA
Kim, J. (09/21/2012 - 09/22/2012). ‘Americans, your own flesh and blood’: Kinships of the Korean War. Annual Conference of Ford Fellows. Irvine, CA
Kim, J. (02/08/2008 - 02/09/2008). American Mestizaje. Nuestra America in the U.S.?: A Latino/a Studies Conference. Lawrence, KS
Selected Grants
, , Warring Genealogies: Race, Kinship, and the Korean War, Pennsylvania State University, Center for American Literary Studies, Submitted 02/01/2017 (06/01/2017 - 06/30/2017) . Other University. Status: Funded.
, , Chollima’s “International Knowledge”: Transregional Formations in 1960s-1970s North Korean Print Culture, American Philosophical Society, Franklin Research Grant, Submitted 11/01/2016 (05/01/2017 - 06/30/2017) . Foundation. Status: Funded.
, , (Co-Principal), Perreira, Christopher, (Co-Principal), Rabasa, Magalí , (Co-Principal), Miner, Joshua, (Co-Principal), Trans/forming Activist Media in the Americas, The Commons Starter Grant, Submitted 11/01/2015 (01/01/2016 - 11/30/2016) . University (KU or KUMC). Status: Funded.
