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 author) or "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.

Grants, Fellowships, Honors & Awards

• 2008, 2009 Senior Research Fellowship, The Academy of Korean Studies, Sŏngnam City, South Korea (project: “Cultural Construction of Civil Society in South Korea”).

Publications

Books

• “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.
• "Introduction: Politics of gender, race, and sexuality in the U.S. Military Empire (co-authored). In "Over There": Living with the U.S. Military Empire.
• "Regulating Desire, Managing the Empire: U.S. Military Prostituton in South Korea, 1945-1970." In "Over There": Living with the U.S. Military Empire.
• "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": Living with the U.S. Military Empire.
• "Camptown Prostitution and Imperial 'SOFA' (Status of Forces Agreement): Abuse and Violence against Transnational Camptown Women in South Korea." In "Over There": Living with the U.S. Military Empire.
• "The Rise of Women in Korea: Gains and Obstacles." In Insight into Korea, edited by the Korea Herald.(Seoul: Herald Media, 2007): 204-213.
• "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 2008): 121-148.

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.
• “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.

Conference Papers, Lectures, Panels

• 2009 “Cultural construction of Civil Society: a Case of Minwuhoe,” Workshop on “Gender and Politics in Contemporary Korea” at the Center for Korean Research at the University of British Columbia, Canada, August 13-14 (invited).
• 2009 “Korea Food: an Evolving Culinary Identity” and “Buddhist Temple Food in contemporary South Korea” at the Fifth Annual Teach Korea Conference: Enhancing Cultural Competence in Korean Language, Family, and Culture, Yale University, July 1-2 (invited).
• 2009 “Buddhist Temple Food in South Korea: Interests and Agency in the Reinvention of Tradition in the Age of Globalization,” panel entitled “Cultural Politics of Food and Beverages in Asian-Pacific Regions,” Association for Asian Studies Meeting, Chicago, March 27.

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.

Outside Vassar College

• Chair (2009-2010) of James B. Palais Book Prize Committee, Northeast Asia Council (NEC), Association for Asian Studies.
• Faculty mentor, SSRC Korean Studies Dissertation Workshop (July 12-16, 2009), Social Science Research Council (invited).
• Chair (2009-2010) of James B. Palais Book Prize Committee, Northeast Asia Council (NEC), Association for Asian Studies.
• Faculty mentor, SSRC Korean Studies Dissertation Workshop (July 12-16, 2009), Social Science Research Council (invited).