The popular uprisings of March 1, 1919, on the Korean peninsula marked a foundational moment in the history of both South Korea and North Korea. The above photo shows Korean immigrants’ parade in Dinuba, California, on the first anniversary of the March 1 movement. The University of Southern California and its Korean Studies Institute have special ties to this event. The KSI is housed in the family residence of Ahn Chang Ho, a leader of the colonial Korean independence movement, while USC’s Korean Heritage Library preserves the historical archives of the Korean National Association (1909-1988), a political organization that represented the perspectives of the Korean diaspora.
In spring, the March 1st Symposium on History and Democracy brings together some of the most distinguished scholars in history, the humanities, and the social sciences. The symposium aims to critically reflect on established paradigms in light of new and emerging methodologies. In Spring 2025, our inaugural conference will bear the title “Colonial Koreans Across Linguistic and National Boundaries.”
Under this intiative, KSI may also organize occasional year-round guest lectures, panels, and screenings that explore the political, social, and cultural dynamics of both Koreas and the Korean diaspora.
Upcoming Event
South Korean Social Activism by Jennifer Jihye Chun and Ju Hui Judy Han
Wednesday, April 8, 3:30-4:50 pm
Ahn House
Professors Jennifer Chun (UCLA, Asian American Studies) Judy Han (UCLA, Gender Studies) will discuss their latest books, Against Abandonment: Repertoires of Solidarity in South Korean Protest and Queer Throughlines: Spaces of Queer Activism in South Korea and the Korean Diaspora. Against Abandonment. Against Abandonment is an ethnographic study of the widespread culture of protest in South Korea that examines both its significant achievements and inherent precarity. And Queer Throughlines offers a rare account of the transnational Koran LGBTQ+ activist movement since the 1990s with a specific focus on its intersections with various other social movements.
Queer Throughlines (University of Michigan Press, 2025) draws on years of direct participation, interviews, and ethnography to examine the transpacific spaces of Korean LGBTQ+ activism. This talk focuses on Chapter 1, “Against Homophobia in the Diaspora,” to analyze the contemporaneous emergence of political homophobia and queer visibility in California during the 1990s and 2000s. By examining the 1999 case of a virulently anti-LGBTQ+ petition campaign driven by Korean Christian conservatives, and the subsequent mobilization of an ad hoc coalition of LGBTQ+ activists and allies who sought to counter it, the talk deploys the conceptual framework of “throughlines” — a methodological approach to tracing the connective threads, political affinities, and discursive proximities that shape queer activism across disparate geographies. By recovering this transpacific history, I argue that queer activism and political homophobia emerged not merely in opposition, but in tandem, as both sides utilized the diaspora to refine their rhetorical strategies and mobilize their respective communities.
The event is co-sponsored by the Consortium for Gender, Sexuality, Race and Public Culture, the Gender and Sexuality Studies Department, East Asian Studies Center, and the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. RSVP here.
Korean Americans and US-Korea Relations
Friday, April 17
Tutor Campus Center 450
This all day symposium brings together Korean and Korean American politicians, scholars, and community leaders to reflect on the place of Korean Americans in the multiethnic history of Los Angeles as well as in the national politics of the United States and the Republic of Korea. The event is organized as part of the West Coast International Relations Network Program sponsored by the Korea foundation, and co-sponsored by the USC Libraries Korean Heritage Library. Full schedule is forthcoming.
Past Events
March 25th, 2025
Doheny Memorial Library (DML), 240
This conference seeks to broaden and integrate existing historical accounts of colonial Korea (1910–1945) with an understanding of Korean diasporic experiences in countries such as the United States, China, and Japan. Bringing together leading scholars of both colonial Korea and early Korean America, the gathering will provoke reflection on personal experiences in the era of global imperialism on both sides of the Pacific. Inspired in part by the publication of Kim San and Nym Wales’ Song of Arirang, conference speakers will address a diverse range of topics, including the transpacific critical reimagining of Korean history, the contributions of diasporic activism to the domestic independence movement, and the effects of colonization on the development of a Korean American identity.
For full conference schedule and panelist bios, click here. See also abstracts and its video trailer.
Namhee Lee – Democracy and the Discourse of De-democratization in Post-1987 South Korea
🕗 November 13, 2024
📍 Doheny Memorial Library (DML), 240
While South Korea successfully transitioned from nearly four decades of authoritarian rule to a parliamentary democracy, the high-level political democratization of post-1987 was also enmeshed with all-out neoliberal restructuring following the 1997 financial crisis. The consequent deepening of inequality and poverty, leading to extreme polarization of the society, along with disappointments with political reform, has resulted in the widespread sense of defeat and pessimism embodied in the discourse of “de-democratization;” that is, despite the hegemony of democratic rhetoric and political democratization, democracy in South Korea is in crisis.
This presentation argues that despite the widespread despair, a broad spectrum of civil society has made equally determined and vociferous efforts to demand and work for democratization in all spheres of life. It explores the political horizons and social imaginaries of these movements, which compel rethinking the meaning of democracy and broadening the existing concept of social movements.
