Welcome

The USC Korean Studies Institute (KSI) celebrates its 30th anniversary this year as a dynamic hub for interdisciplinary research and academic exchange in Korean studies at USC and beyond. The Institute supports research and teaching on globally relevant issues within the Korean context through its research-oriented initiatives and student-centered programs.

The KSI Event Calendar

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Faculty-Led Research Initiatives

The institute supports a range of research initiatives that include global Korean history, language and literature, politics, media and performance arts, technoscience, urban studies, and environmental humanities.

Koreatown and the Korean American Experience

The March First Symposium on History and Democracy

Korean Language, Literature, and Translation

Korean Media and Performing Arts

Technoscience, Environment, and Culture

The U.S-Korea Network in Economics, Policy, and International Relations

KSI Interview with President Beong-Soo Kim

On July 1, 2025, USC appointed Beong-Soo Kim as President, making him one of the few Korean American leaders of a major research university in the United States. He previously served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel and taught at the Gould School of Law. On July 17, Constitution Day in the Republic of Korea, he sat down with Sunyoung Park, Director of USC’s Korean Studies Institute, for an interview on his perspectives on USC, the role of international students in its academic community, the current strengths of USC’s Korean Studies program, and more.
Faculty News

Congratulations to Professor Esther K. Chae and the Production Team of Nickelodeon’s Wylde Pak for Its Nomination for the 2026 Children’s & Family Emmy Awards!

On October 7, 2025, the USC Korean Studies Institute hosted a screening of Wylde Pak, Nickelodeon’s 2D-animated series about a blended, multigenerational Korean American family. The event was followed by a conversation with members of the creative team, including creators and executive producers Paul Watling and Kyle Marshall.

Professor Esther K. Chae of USC’s School of Dramatic Arts served as the show’s Korean Cultural Consultant, collaborating with the team to ensure cultural veracity throughout the entire series.

KSI extends its warm congratulations to Professor Chae and the entire Wylde Pak team on the show’s nomination for a 2026 Emmy Award in the category of Children’s or Young Teen Animated Series.

Call for Proposal

Traditions of East Asian Typography Conference

The Conference on Traditions of East Asian Typography seeks to investigate the autochthonous traditions of movable type in East Asia before the arrival of Western letterpress and lithography in the late nineteenth century. Woodblock was the dominant and preferred method of printing in East Asia up until the nineteenth century. By contrast, East Asia’s home-grown typographic traditions often seem like an afterthought, an eccentricity, or an abandoned experiment that failed to match the Gutenberg revolution. Yet, typography was never entirely discontinued, and diverse actors utilized movable type at particular times, in specific places, or for certain objectives, often in direct competition with xylography. The aim of this conference is to interrogate these traditions as distinct technological systems, explore their possible mutual interactions, and to push the English language scholarship on East Asian typography, and East Asian book history more broadly, in new directions. We welcome proposals from scholars of any academic rank or geographical location. All proposals must engage substantially with East Asian contexts and typography prior to the twentieth century, although comparative chronological or geographic investigations are welcome. 

Deadline for submissions is November 15, 2025. The conference will be held March 6, 2026, at the University of Southern California.

Link for more information
Event Spotlight

USC Graduate Conference in Korean Studies

The USC Korean Studies Institute hosted an Annual USC Graduate Conference in Korean Studies on October 24-25, 2025. Over two days, junior scholars presented papers on topics related to women artists, portrayal of Korean identities in the media, history literature, Buddhism, modernization, rhetoric in premodern Korea, and translation and multilingual texts. The panelists comprised of graduate students at USC and beyond. Through their participation, a number of programs from across the country and even across the Pacific were represented, including Duke University, Ewha Womens University, George Washington University, Ohio State University, Seoul National University, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, and Yale University.

This annual graduate conference fosters a multidisciplinary community of local and regional graduate students whose research projects significantly engage Korean society and culture across the periods. It offers a platform for emerging scholars to present their work-in-progress, receive feedback from faculty and peers, and participate in interdisciplinary discussions within a supportive environment.

 

Event Spotlight

KF-USC Korean Studies Forum

USC KSI hosted an annual all-day regional forum that presented the current trends of the field of Korean studies on Thursday, October 16. A select multidisciplinary group of leading scholars from the universities in the Southern California region came to discuss their research agendas. The event was sponsored by the Korea Foundation. See the full program and participants’ bios. KSI also hosted the 2025 Korea Foundation Fellows Mentoring Workshop on October 17.

Korean Studies Programs at USC

    KSI Undergraduate Fellows Program

    The Korean Studies Institute (KSI) Undergraduate Fellows Program is an opportunity for USC undergraduates to produce a research paper on key issues in Korean history, culture, and society in the Fall semester, culminating in presentations at the annual joint conference between KSI and the Nam Center for Korean Studies at the University of Michigan in the Spring semester.

    Students will be required to register for KSI 399 (#25813) for 4 units in the Fall semester and participate in the exchange conference in the Spring semester. Both the class and the conference are held in person during the academic year.

    East Asian Languages and Cultures: Majors and Minors

    The core requirements for the EALC major and minor allow students flexibility in designing their own course of study. Majors typically select one language and cultural area (Chinese, Japanese, or Korean) in which they do most of their course work. Students are encouraged to explore beyond their individual language focus by enrolling in the full range of EALC courses available in literature, film, history, media, and other aspects of East Asian cultures. Learn more.

    Korean Language Program

    Being able to speak another language simply provides you with better opportunities as well as personal enrichment. Or you may want to pursue that interest in K-pop or Korean TV dramas. These are just a few reasons to learn Korean. Whatever your motivation, the Korean Language Program at USC will help you to achieve your goal of acquiring linguistic and cultural competence in the Korean language.

    East Asian Studies Center: Korean Studies Minor

    The Korean Studies (KRNS) minor is intended for students who are interested in the political, economic, social and cultural changes of the area, and draws upon courses from departments across the social sciences, humanities, and professional schools. The East Asian Studies Center also offers majors and minors in East Asian Area Studies.

    Our Community

    Graduate Students

    Graduate Students can organize the annual USC Conference in Korean Studies, participate in the Bridging Asia Conference, and receive the Summer Fieldwork Grant.

    Undergraduate Students

    Undergraduate Students are invited to join the KSI Fellows Program and participate in the Joint Conference with the Nam Center of Korean Studies at the University of Michigan.

    Visiting Scholars

    KSI annually hosts visiting scholars from academia, government, and private organizations. Visiting scholars are welcome to take active part in the institute’s activities.