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The Ohio State University's Institute for Korean Studies presents:
Seungsook Moon
Vassar College
Abstract: During this talk, Professor Moon will discuss her new book, Civic Activism in South Korea (Columbia University Press, 2024) that illuminates complex ways in which neoliberalism simultaneously undermines and enables democracy in South Korea. The book demonstrates these contradictory interactions by focusing on three different types of “citizens’ organizations”: a large national advocacy organization run by professional staff activists, two medium-size local branches of a national feminist organization run by mostly volunteer women activists, and a small local organization run by volunteer activists with a focus on foreign migrants. This presentation highlights the last example of activism with foreign migrants. Democracy and neoliberalism are major keywords that convey aspirations, challenges, and problems of our era, as well as globally practiced modes of ruling. As many societies in the world have undergone neoliberal transformation not only in the economy, but also in culture and politics, this case study has global implications for how to assess our daily lives and how to envision a better world.
Dr. Seungsook Moon is Professor of Sociology at Vassar College. She is a political and cultural sociologist, scholar of gender studies, and Asianist specializing in South Korea. Her research interests include civic activism and citizenship; transnational militarism and military service; masculinities in neoliberal societies; and food, culture, & globalization. She is the author of Militarized Modernity and Gendered Citizenship in South Korea, and a co-editor of and contributor to Over There: Living with the U.S. Military Empire from World War II to the Present (both published by Duke University Press). Both books were translated into Korean and selected for the Ten-Books-Worth-Reading by the Korean Publication Ethics Commission (20007) and the list of Excellent Scholarly Books by the Korean Academy of Arts and Sciences (2017), respectively. She also received prestigious awards, including the inaugural endowed-chair visiting professorship (Sang-Kee Kim Visiting Professor of the Social Sciences) at Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University (2014-2015) and Fulbright Senior Scholar Award (2004-2005). To balance her academic life, she has become an amateur Argentine Tango dancer.
