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minwoojung.bsky.social
Sociologist at Loyola University Chicago
125 posts 4,179 followers 187 following
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As South Korea’s newly elected President Lee Jae-myung pledges to rebuild democracy, revive the economy, and foster a just and safe society, several long-running grassroots protests across the country highlight challenges ahead and call on the government to turn promises into meaningful action.

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

“Can the past help the present? Can the dead save the living?” (Han Kang)

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

In this collective conversation at @sexandsexualities.bsky.social, Jyoti Puri, Sa’ed Atshan, Zine Magubane, and I discussed the intersections of empire, race, sexuality, and gender in history and in the present. doi.org/10.1177/3033...

submitted 22 days ago • 1 comment

“As a field largely institutionalized within US academia during the Cold War, Korean studies has long operated as a knowledge project that served the strategic and ideological interests of the US empire. The production of academic knowledge about Korea was never neutral.”

submitted 33 days ago • 2 comments

“Gwangju is not over. The perpetrators have never been fully held accountable, and South Korea’s official narrative of post-dictatorship democracy has obscured the enduring effects of military rule… Gwangju is not just a traumatic event happened in 1980—it remains deeply embedded in the present.”

submitted 33 days ago • 1 comment

Lee Ok-sun, a survivor of the Japanese military‘s wartime sexual slavery system known as “comfort women,” has died at the age of 97. Her death leaves only six registered survivors of the officially recognized victims.

submitted 38 days ago • 1 comment

Keimyung University in Daegu, South Korea, is shutting down its Women’s Studies grad program (one of only two independent departments in the country) merging it into Sociology, sparking strong backlash against an undemocratic move disguised as a response to low enrollment and financial strain.

submitted 40 days ago • 1 comment

How can I stay ethically and politically grounded while still extending care and generosity? Keep my eyes open to pain and injustice without being paralyzed by despair? Long for more without letting it turn into self-doubt or resentment? The long spring semester’s over, but nothing feels clear.

submitted 41 days ago • 2 comments

In the US, screenings of documentaries like No Other Land and The Encampments have been banned or canceled on campuses. In South Korea, a university-run theater has banned the screening of queer films. What’s allowed on campus speaks volumes about the current landscape of higher education.

submitted 42 days ago • 1 comment

ILGA Asia issued an important statement against the ILGA World Board’s decision to lift the suspension of an Israeli member org, which was imposed due to widespread opposition to the org’s bid to host the ILGA World Conference in Tel Aviv and its silence amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

submitted 42 days ago • 1 comment

Professor Kim Seok-ho, the chair of the sociology department at Seoul National University recently joined the presidential campaign of former acting president Han Duck-soo as its head fundraiser. Han is widely recognized as a key figure in the self-coup attempt by impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol.

submitted 43 days ago • 1 comment

2025 marks 50 years since the end of the US war in Vietnam. Yet South Korea’s role, including its troops’ violence against civilians, remains underacknowledged. Tied to US-led militarism, Korean soldiers served as racialized, gendered labor in a broader system of imperial violence and exploitation.

submitted 45 days ago • 1 comment

Reminder: The application deadline for the Publication Mentoring Workshop is in one week, by May 9 at midnight EST. This workshop for graduate students and postdocs will be held on June 6, 2025. See the CFP for details and submission guidelines. Link to apply: forms.gle/fb6B2KMgnZGh...

submitted 47 days ago • 1 comment

Please join the ASA Global/Transnational Section and UP Diliman for the virtual event, Decolonizing Sociology: Centering the Global South. Panelists will share their visions for decolonization led by the Global South. May 2 (Fri), 9AM EST, 1PM GMT | Zoom: tinyurl.com/ASAGATSUP | PW: UPDiliman

submitted 50 days ago • 1 comment

Join us for a virtual conversation exploring global resistance to democratic backsliding. We’ll discuss how social movements are pushing back against right-wing regimes around the world, with a focus on immigration, higher eduction, and gender and reproductive justice. Register: bit.ly/CBSMevent

submitted 53 days ago • 0 comments

The new ASA journal, Sex & Sexualities, has launched, and its inaugural issue will be released in May. I‘ve joined the editorial board with amazing colleagues.

submitted 55 days ago • 1 comment

However painful, spring does come.

submitted 56 days ago • 0 comments

In dark times, when a public post on social media can lead to enforced disappearance or human trafficking, community building and organizing take place in unexpected and unseen spaces, beyond our CVs.

submitted 60 days ago • 0 comments

It’s hard to keep up with anything these days, but I’m grateful that my new article, “Decolonizing the Global: Contested Cosmopolitanisms in Global Queer Activism,” is finally out—after seven rejections over eight years: doi.org/10.1111/1468...

submitted 63 days ago • 5 comments

We’re organizing a publication mentoring workshop for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars whose work engages with Korea (broadly defined) or the Korean diaspora. Selected participants will be matched with expert mentors for in-depth feedback. Submit your work-in-progress by May 9!

submitted 65 days ago • 0 comments

Join us on Friday for a special community screening of Until the Stones Speak 돌들이 말할 때까지, which follows the stories of five women who survived the Jeju April 3 Massacre and state violence during the Cold War. This event also commemorates other instances of state violence in South Korea.

submitted 70 days ago • 0 comments