USC.edu

Sunyoung Park

Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Gender and Sexuality Studies
Sunyoung Park
Pronouns She / Her / Hers Email sunyoung.park@usc.edu Office THH 378 Office Phone (213) 740-8256

Research & Practice Areas

Modern and contemporary Korean literature and culture; postcolonial studies; transnational anarchism and Marxism; feminism and gender studies; science fiction and technoculture studies

Education

  • Ph.D. English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, 10/2006
  • M.A. English Literature, SUNY at Buffalo, 9/1998
  • B.A. Korean Language and Literature, Seoul National University, 2/1995

  • Tenure Track Appointments

    • Director of Graduate Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, USC, 2020 – 2022
    • Director of Undergraduate and Graduate Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, USC, 2015 – 2017
    • Associate Professor, Departments of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Gender Studies and Sexuality, University of Southern California, 03/2014 –
    • Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, USC, 08/2008 – 03/2014

    PostDoctoral Appointments

    • Postdoctoral Fellow in Korean Stuides, Washington University in St. Louis, 08/2006 – 05/2008

    Visiting and Temporary Appointments

    • Korea Foundation Research Fellow, The Department of Science Studies, Seoul National University, 08/01/2022-12/31/2022
    • Visiting Professor, the Academy of East Asian Studies at Sungkyunkwan University, 06/15/2016-08/14/2016
    • Visiting Lecturer in Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, 2004-2005

  • Book

    • Kim, B. (2021). On the Origin of Species and Other Stories, edited by Sunyoung Park and translated by Sora Kim-Russell and Joungmin Lee Comfort. Kaya Press. Longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature. (Click for the publication announcement.)
    • Park, S. (2019). ed. Revisiting Minjung: New Perspectives on the Cultural History of 1980s South Korea. University of Michigan Press. Translated into Korean as Minding ŭi side in 2023.. (Click for the publication announcement.)
    • Park, S. (2019). and Sang Joon Park, eds. Readymade Bodhisattva: The Kaya Anthology of South Korean Science Fiction. Kaya Press. (Click for Gary K. Wolfe’s review)
    • Park, S. (2015). The Proletarian Wave: Literature and Leftist Culture in Colonial Korea, 1910-1945. Harvard University Press. (See the table of content)
    • Kim, N. (2015). Barley, translated by Sunyoung Park. Seoul: ASIA.
    • Park, S. (2010). trans and ed. On the the Eve of the Uprising and Other Stories from Colonial Korea. Cornell East Asian Series.

    Book Chapters

    • Park, S. (2023). “A Day in the Life of Kubo the Novelist,” translated by Sunyoung Park in collaboration with Jefferson Gatrall and Kevin O’Rourke (the most updated translation). The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories.
    • Park, S. (2022). “A Forgotten Aesthetic: Reportage in Colonial Korea 1920s-1930s”. The Routledge Companion to Korean Literature. pp. 273-287. Edited by Heekyoung Cho.
    • Park, S. (2020). “Better Tomorrows: Science Fiction, Art, and Politics in South Korea, 1960s-2010s” (in both English and Korean). What Do Museums Change?: Art and Democracy. pp. 264-287. Seoul, South Korea: National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.
    • Park, S. (2020). “Decolonizing the Future: Postcolonial themes in South Korean Science Fiction”. Routledge Handbook of Modern Korean Literature. pp. 56-67. Edited by Yoon Sun Yang.
    • Park, S. (2019). “Reciprocal Assets: Science Fiction and Democratization in 1980s South Korea”. In Revisiting Minjung. pp. 247-273. University of Michigan Press.
    • Park, S. (2018). “Dissident Dreams: Science Fictional Imagination in 1970s Korean Literature and Film”. In Youngju Ryu, ed., Cultures of Yushin. pp. 165-192. University of Michigan Press.

    Journal Article

    • Park, S. (2018). “Between Science and Politics: Science Fiction as a Critical Discourse in South Korea, 1960s-1990s”. Special Issue, “Science and Literature,” edited by Christopher Hanscom and Dafna Zur, Journal of Korean Studies. Vol. 23 (2), pp. 347-367. (Click for the article.)
    • Park, S. (2018). “Anarchism and Culture in Colonial Korea: Minjung Revolution, Mutual Aid, and the Appeal of Nature”. Special issue, “Writing Revolution Across East Asia,” edited by Steven Lee, Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review. Vol. 28, pp. 93-115.
    • Park, S. (2014). “Archive Odyssey: On the State of Korean Literature Studies in North America” (Ak’aibu odisei: haeoe han’guk munhak yon’gu hyonhwang e kwanhan ilgo). Kundae soji (Modern Korean bibliographical studies). Vol. 9, pp. 557-568.
    • Park, S. (2013). “Rethinking Feminism in Colonial Korea: Kang Kyongae and 1930s Leftist Women’s Literature”. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique. Vol. 21 (4), pp. 947-985. (Click for the article.)
    • Park, S. Everyday Life as Critique in Late Colonial Korea: Kim Namch’on’s Literary Experiments, 1934–1943. Journal of Asian Studiesno. 3(2009): 861–893. (Click for the article.)
    • Park, S. (2006). “The Colonial Origin of Korean Realism and Its Contemporary Manifestation”. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique. Vol. 14 (1), pp. 165–192. (Click for the article.)

    Newpaper

    • Park, S. (2014). “On the Formation of the ‘Archive’ of Korean Literature in the United States”. Kyosu sinmun.

    Essay Translation

    • Lee, H. (2019). “Bright Constellation: The Rise and Significance of Women’s Liberation Literature in 1980s South Korea.” trans. Sunyoung Park. In Revisiting Minjung. pp. 169-194.
    • Cheon, J. (2014). “The Development of Mass Intellectuality: Reading Circles and Socialist Culture in 1920s Korea,” trans. Bora Chung and Sunyoung Park. East Asian History. (Read it here.)

    Other

    • Park, S., Jae-moon, H., Ji-young, Y. (2023). The Nak Chung Thun Archive–The literary archive of Nak Chung Thun (1875-1953), the first-generation Korean American immigrant from Chongju, Pyongan Province. The digital archive includes all his writings–eight fictional titles and six essays–that are estimated to have been written between 1917 and 1937. USC Libraries. (Click here to view the digital archive.)
    • Park, S., Park, S., Kim, J., Lee, S., Park, T. (2022). Science Fiction in Korea: Between History, Genre, and Politics. USC Libraries. (Click here to view the digital exhibition.)
    • Science Fiction in East Asia, EALC 266, Fall 2021
    • Advanced Gender Theory, Department of Gender Studies and Sexuality, Fall 2020
    • Feminist Theory: An Introduction, SWMS 301, Gender Studies Program, 2015-2016
    • Korean Culture from Ancient to Modern Times, EALC 344g, 2015-2016
    • Modern Korean Literature and Thought, GSEM 120g, 2015-2016
    • Gender and Sexuality in Korean Literature and Culture, EALC 430, 2013-2014
    • Critical Issues in Asian Culture: Marxism and Culture in East Asia, EALC 480, 2010-2011
    • East Asia in Cross-Cultural Theories, EALC 507, 2010-2011
    • Modernity and Cultural Representation in Korea, EALC 534, 2010-2011
    • Modern Korean Literature in Translation, EALC 322, 2008-2009
    • The Most Accessible and Captivating Work for the Non-Specialist Reader Accolade (for The Proletarian Wave), the International Convention of Asian Scholars, 2017
    • Translation Grant, Korean Literature Translation Institute, 2015/08-2017/12
    • Advancing Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences, USC Office of the Provost, 2015-2016
    • USC Mellon Graduate Mentoring Award, 2015-2016
    • Association for Asian Studies First Book Subvention, 2014-2015
    • Daesan Foundation Research Grant, 2013-2014

  • Administative Appointment

    • President, Korean Literature Association. http://koreanlit.org, 2023 – 2025

    Committees

    • Chair, Committee on Korean Studies, Northeast Asia Council, The Association for Asian Studies. https://koreanstudies.org/, 2018 – 2020
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