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Call for Papers

Material Modernities: Materiality, Space, and Mobility in 20th-Century Korea

Conference Statement:

 

The 2026 Keimyung International Conference on Korean Studies (KICKS 2026), to be held at Keimyung University in Daegu on November 11–12, 2026, invites scholars of Korean Studies to examine how material environments, urban infrastructures, and mobility systems reshaped everyday life and social consciousness in 20th-century Korea. Roads, electricity networks, railways, streetcar lines, ports, water systems, factories, housing projects, and digital infrastructures not only altered physical landscapes but also reconfigured sensory experience, social relations, labor, and collective aspirations. These material systems operated not merely as technical supports but as formative conditions of social life. As Korea transitioned through the Great Han Empire, Japanese colonial rule, post-war reconstruction, rapid industrialization, and the rise of global metropolitan cities, material transformations fundamentally reorganized how people lived, moved, and imagined their presents and futures. 

By foregrounding materiality, this conference seeks to understand how matter, space, and mobility produced new forms of belonging, alienation, imagination, and resistance. We welcome interdisciplinary approaches from history, cultural studies, anthropology, geography, literature, and visual arts, and related fields that critically explore how material forces shaped Korean subjectivities and everyday practices. Moving beyond earlier theories of materialism, the analytic focus on “material modernities” emphasizes how things themselves participate in social life. This perspective reconsiders the relationship between human and non-human actors by defining objects, substances, and technologies as active mediators and showing how meanings are co-produced by both humans and non-humans. Through this dialogue, KICKS 2026 aims to articulate new frameworks for interpreting the material and experiential dimensions of modern Korean history.

To be considered as a KICKS 2026 presenter, please send a short bio and abstract (approximately 300 words) to kicksconference@gmail.com by February 15, 2026. The conference organizers will notify selected participants by mid-March. Selected presenters will receive round-trip airfare or domestic transportation expenses, accommodations, and meals during the conference. Following the conference, outstanding presenters will be invited to submit manuscripts for publication consideration in Acta Koreana.

 

Brainstorming Questions:

• How did modern infrastructures, including railroads, ports, roads, water systems reorganize everyday life, rhythms of labor, and social hierarchies in Korea?
• In what ways did forms of mobility such as streetcars, buses, highways and automobiles reshape Korean understanding of space, time, and modernity?
• How did new materials and mass-produced goods, including cement, glass, plastics, household appliances, and textiles, transform domestic life, sensory experience, or gendered divisions of labor?
• How did Koreans contest, appropriate, or reimagine the infrastructural systems imposed by colonial powers, the developmental state, or global capital?
• How did material practices of consumption, waste, and recycling reflect or challenge dominant narratives of development and progress?
• How might we conceptualize materiality and mobility as co-producers of historical consciousness and cultural identity in twentieth-century Korea?

Please feel free to reach out to kicksconference@gmail.com, if you have any questions.