Asian Studies

Faculty

Seungsook Moon grew up in Seoul, Korea where she received a B.A. in Sociology at Yonsei University. She received her Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 1994 and taught in Social Studies, the Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Honors Program, at Harvard University from 1993 to 1995.

Since joining the faculty at Vassar College in 1995, Ms. Moon has taught courses on Political and Cultural Sociology, including Militarism, Food, Culture, and Globalization, Women's Movements in Asia, Gender and Social change in East Asia, Asian American Communities and Social Theory. This wide range of courses are connected by underlying focuses on historical and social forces, and informed by critical inquiries of the power/knowledge nexus and the politics of representation necessary to cross-cultural and transnational studies.

Ms. Moon's research interests lie in political and cultural sociology of gender in East Asia with the specific focus on South Korea. She has published numerous articles on nationalism, militarism, civil society and democratization, and globalization. She is the author of Militarized Modernity and Gendered Citizenship in South Korea (Duke University Press, 2005) and a coeditor (and primary author) of "Over There": Living with the U.S. Military Empire (Duke University Press, 2010).

Academic Appointments

• 2009- present, Professor, Sociology, Vassar College
• 2004-2008, Associate Professor, Sociology, Vassar College.
• 2006-2009, Director of Asian Studies Program, Vassar College.
• 2004-2005, Fulbright Senior Scholar, Graduate School of International
• Studies, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.
• 1997-2004, Assistant Professor, Sociology, Vassar College.
• 1995-1997, Visiting Assistant Professor, Sociology, Vassar College.
• 1993-1995, Lecturer, Social Studies (undergraduate interdisciplinary honors program), Harvard University.

Publications

Book

• Militarized Modernity and Gendered Citizenship in South Korea. (Duke University Press; Politics, History, and Culture Series, 2005); reprinted in 2007.
• Kunsajuŭie kach’in kŭndae: kungminmandŭlgi, simindoegi, kŭrigo sŏngŭi chŏngch’i, Korean translation of the aforementioned book (Seoul: Alternative Culture Publication, 2007).
• “Over There”: Living with the U.S. Military Empire (Duke University Press, 2010); co-edited this volume, authored three chapters of this volume, and co-authored Introduction and Conclusion.

Refereed journal articles and book chapters:

• “The Interplay between the State, the Market, and Culture in Shaping Civil Society: A Case Study of the PSPD in Post-Military Rule Korea,” Journal of Asian Studies 69:2 (May 2010).
• “Buddhist Temple Food in South Korea: Interests and Agency in the Reinvention of Tradition in the Age of Globalization,” Korea Journal 48:4 (Winter 2008): 147-180.
• “Cultural Politics of Remembering Park Chung Hee,” Harvard Asia Quarterly Vol. XI (Spring/Summer 2008): 26-44. A somewhat different version of this paper was reprinted in The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol. 19 (May 9, 2009); accessed at http://japanfocus.org/-Seungsook-Moon/3140.
• “Introduction: the Politics of Gender, Sexuality and Race in the U.S. Military Empire” (co-authored with Maria Hoehn) in “Over There”: Living with the U.S. Military Empire (Duke University Press, 2010).
• “Regulating Desire, Managing the Empire: the U.S. Military Prostitution in South Korea, 1945-1970” in “Over There” (Chapter 1).
• “In the U.S. Army but not quite of It: Contesting the Imperial Power in the Discourse of KATUSAs (Korean Augmentation Troops to the United States Army)” in “Over There” (Chapter 7).
• “Camptown Prostitution and Imperial ‘SOFA’ (Status of Forces Agreement): Abuse and Violence against Transnational Camptown Women in South Korea” in “Over There” (Chapter 11).
• “Conclusion” (co-authored with Maria Hoehn) in “Over There”.
• “Women and Civil Society in South Korea” in Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy, and the State, 2nd ed. edited by Charles K. Armstrong (Routledge, 2007; reprinted in 2009): 121-148.
• “The Rise of Women in Korea: Gains and Obstacles” in Insight into Korea, edited by the Korea Herald. Seoul: Herald Media, 2007): 204-213.
• "Cambio social y situación de las mujeres en Corea del Sur: Familia, trabajo y politica" (Social change and women's position in South Korea: family, work, and politics) in Mujeres asiáticas: Cambio social y modernidad (Asian women: Social Change and Modernity), edited by Amelia Sááiz López. Documento CIDOB-Asia, no. 12. Barcelona: Fundación CIDOB, 2006): 24-48.
• “Trouble with Conscription, Entertaining Soldiers: Popular Culture and the Politics of Militarized Masculinity in South Korea” Men and Masculinities 8:1 (July 2005): 64-92.
• “Immigration and Mothering: Two Generations of Middle-Class Korean Immigrant Women,” Gender & Society 17:6(December 2003): 840-860.
• “Redrafting Democratization through Women’s Representation and Participation in the Republic of Korea” in Korea’s Democratization, edited by Samuel S. Kim (Cambridge University Press, 2003): 107-134.
• “Imagining a Nation through Differences: Reading the Controversy concerning the Military Service Extra Points System in South Korea,” The Review of Korean Studies 5:2(December 2002): 73-109.
• “Beyond Equality Versus Difference: Professional Women Soldiers in the South Korean Army,” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society 9:2(Summer 2002): 212-247.
• "Carving Out Space: Civil Society and the Women's Movement in South Korea," The Journal of Asian Studies 61:2(May, 2002): 473-500.
• "The Production and Subversion of Hegemonic Masculinity: Reconfiguring Gender Hierarchy in Contemporary South Korea," in Under construction: The Gendering of Modernity, Class, and Consumption in the Republic of Korea, ed. Laurel Kendall (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001), pp. 79-113.
• "Overcome by Globalization: The Rise of a Women's Policy in South Korea," in Korea's Globalization, ed. Samuel S. Kim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 126-46.
• "Gender, Militarization, and Universal Male Conscription in South Korea," in The Women and War Reader, eds. Lois Lorentzen and Jennifer Turpin (New York: New York University Press, 1998), pp. 90-100.
• "Begetting the Nation: The Androcentric Discourse of National History and Tradition in South Korea," in Dangerous Women: Gender and Korean Nationalism , eds. Elaine Kim and Chungmoo Choi (New York: Routledge, 1997), pp. 33-66.
• "Eurocentric Elements in the Idea of 'Surrender-and-Catch'," Human Studies 16(1993): 305-317.

Book (and film) Reviews:

• Kelly H. Chong, Deliverance and Submission: Evangelical Women and the Negotiation of Patriarchy in South Korea (2008) in The Journal of Asian Studies (forthcoming).
• Theodore Jun Yoo, The Politics of Gender in Colonial Korea: Education, Labor, and Health, 1910-1945 (2008) in Journal of Social History (forthcoming).
• Angie Y. Chung, Legacies of Struggle: Conflict and Cooperation in Korean American Politics (2007) in American Journal of Sociology 115:3(November 2009).
• Gi-Wook Shin, Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy (2006) in Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews 37:6(November 2008): 579-580.
• “A review of The Unforgiven (Yongsŏbatchi mothanja)” (2005 film about three Korean conscripts directed by Jong-bin Yoon, 120 minutes), News and Reviews (Publication of the Asian Educational Media Service, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) Issue 26 (Summer 2007): 1 and 8
• Kyung Hyun Kim, The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema (2004) in Journal of Gender Studies (July 2005): 169-170.
• Nancy Abelmann, The Melodrama of Mobility: Women, Talk and Class in Contemporary South Korea (2003) in Gender & Society 19:1(February 2005): 125-126.
• Sheila Miyoshi Jager, Narratives of Nation building in Korea: A Genealogy of Patriotism (2003) in Acta Koreana 8:2 (July 2005): 185-186.
• Mary C. Brinton, ed., Women’s Working Lives in East Asia (2001) and Esther Ngan-ling Chow, ed., Transforming Gender and Development in East Asia (2002) in Gender & Society 17:4(August 2003): 643-644.
• Charles K. Armstrong, Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy, and the State (2002) in Pacific Affairs 76:1(Spring 2003): 134-135.
• John Lie, Han Unbound: the Political Economy of South Korea (1998) in Social Forces 77 (June 1999): 1656-58.
• Barbara Ehrenreich, Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War (1997) in Peace Work, Issue no. 279 (November 1997): 5-6.

Other Publications:

• “The Rise of Women in Korea: Gains and Obstacles,” a special feature article commissioned by the Korea Herald (a major English newspaper published in South Korea), July 11 2007, p. 4 and p. 9.
• “Gender, Conscription, and Popular Culture in Contemporary Korea,” in The Military and South Korean Society, edited by Young-Key Kim-Renaud, R. Richard Grinker, and Kirk W. Larsen. The Sigur Center Asia Papers no. 26. The Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University (2006): 15-27.
• “Betwixt and Between Law and Practices: Korean Women in the Workplace,”
• Edging Toward Full Empowerment: South Korean Women in the Workplace and the Political Arena, Asia Program Special Report no. 132 (September 2006), edited by Michael Kugelmann, Asian Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC: 6-13. A slightly different version of this article (entitled “Korean Women in Workplace: Law and Practice”) was republished in Korean Journal of Public Policy 22(Winter 2006): 49-61.
• “Haebang 60junyŏnŭi sijage t’al/minjogjuŭirŭl saenggakhamyŏ” (A reflection on nationalism and postnationalism at the outset of the sixtieth anniversary of Korean Independence), Tangdaebip'yŏng (February 2005): 83-88.
• “Interpreting the Gendered Process of Democratization in South Korea,” The Good Society, a PEGS (Political Economy of the Good Society) journal 11:3 (2002): 36-42.
• "Namsŏngŭi, namsŏnge ŭihan, namsŏngŭl wihan han’guk" (Korea: of the men, by the men, and for the men), Tangdaebip'yŏng 9(Winter 1999): 115-137; This work is a Korean translation of “Begetting the Nation.”
• "Modernization of Gender Hierarchy in South Korea: the Politics of Family Law Reform," The Journal of Modern Korean Studies 6(1996): 19-43.

Teaching Areas

Political and Cultural Sociology of Gender (militarism, the U.S. military empire; civil society, social movements, and NGOs; food); Social Theory and Feminist Theory; Class, Gender, Race/ethnicity, and Sexuality in Asian American Communities.

Courses taught:

Vassar College

• AS 110 Social Change in Korea through Film (combined with two-week study trip to South Korea during the spring break in 2004; for comprehensive information on this course, see http://faculty.vassar.edu/semoon/projects/asia110/)
• AS/Soc 111 Social Change in Korea through Film (revised to be taught as a regular course without the study trip)
• Soc 151 Introductory Sociology (with the focus on the classical sociological theory of Anna Julia Cooper, W.E.B. Du Bois, Durkheim, Marx, Simmel, and Weber)
• Soc/AS 216 Food, Culture, and Globalization
• Soc/AS 236 Women, Men, and Social Change in East Asia
• Soc 247 Modern Social Theory: Redrawing the Boundary
• Soc/AS/ Re-orienting America: Asians in American History and AMCT 257 Society
• Soc 288 Asian American Communities: Contemporary Issues
• WMST 251 Global Feminisms: Building Solidarity across Power Differences
• Soc/AS/ Women’s Movements in Asia WMST 306
• Soc 347 Re-envisioning Women in the Third World
• Soc 382 Women and the Politics of Third World Development

Harvard University

• Social One-year long tutorial on political and social theories that Studies examined primary classical and contemporary theory texts. 10 Social Studies (undergraduate interdisciplinary honors program).