The Department of Asian Languages and Literature is excited to announce that Dr. Ungsan Kim will join the department this autumn as assistant professor.
Dr. Kim received his BA in 2000 in German Language and Literature and MA in 2008 in Comparative Literature, both from Seoul National University. He received his PhD in 2019 in English and earned a graduate certificate in Cinema and Media Studies from the University of Washington. In 2019-2021, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow (LSA Collegiate Fellow) at the National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Since Autumn 2021, he has been working as Assistant Professor of Asian Cinema jointly appointed in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures and the Department of Film, Television, and Media at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Kim is a specialist in film studies whose work has focused on queer Asian cinema. Among his recent publications are “The Critical Social Turn of Queer Korean Cinema: Hospitality and the Temporal Economy of Queer Kinship in The Bacchus Lady (2016)” (Korea Journal, 2018); “Queer Korean Cinema, National Others, and Making of Queer Space in Stateless Things (2011)” (Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, 2017); “Stateless Things (2011): Queer Cinema and the Critique of the Heteronormative Nation-State,” published in the book Rediscovering Korean Cinema (2019); and "The Poet and the Theater: Perverse Reading and Queer Poetry," published in Routledge Companion to Korean Literature (2022) edited by Asian L&L Associate Professor Heekyoung Cho.
Dr. Kim has developed and taught popular undergraduate courses such as “Film Culture in Korea” and “Asian Horror Cinema”, and will offer similar undergraduate courses at UW. He will also be engaged in the teaching and training of graduate students.
Dr. Kim intends to offer the following Asian L&L courses in Winter and Spring 2023:
- WINTER 2023: KOREAN 365 - Korean Cinema: History and Aesthetics
- SPRING 2023: ASIAN 498 - From Korea to Taiwan: Queer Asian Cinema
In addition to his home in Asian Languages and Literature, his work at UW will be enhanced by research and teaching connections with other departments on campus, including Korea Studies, Cinema and Media Studies, Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, and English. In collaboration with the Center for Korea Studies, Dr. Kim will also be facilitating a variety of film screenings during his time with the University.
Welcome (back) to UW and to the department, Dr. Kim!