Korea

Seong Uk Kim

Seong Uk Kim

Il Hwan and Soonja Cho Associate Professor of Korean Culture and Religion

Office: 616 Kent Hall
Office Hours: M/W 2:30-3:30 PM
Email: sk4236@columbia.edu

Educational Background

PhD: University of California, Los Angeles (’13)

Classes Taught

ASCE UN1363 Introduction to East Asian Civilizations: Korea
AHUM UN1400 Colloquium on Major Texts: East Asia
EARL GU4320 Buddhism and Korean Culture

Research Interests

Korean Buddhism and Religions, East Asian Buddhism and Religions

Seong Uk Kim’s research interest lies in the intersections between Buddhism and other religions in pre-modern Korea. His first book, Monks and Literati, examines the relationships between Buddhist monastics and Confucian elites with diverse attitudes toward Buddhism in the late Chosŏn period from the 17th to 19th centuries. His current research explores the development of self-identifying Sŏn Buddhist communities of the same period to reconstruct the social, cultural, and religious history of Korean Sŏn tradition. Before coming to Columbia, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University in St. Louis (2013-2014) and Harvard University (2014-2015), teaching “Buddhist Traditions,” “Introduction to Korean Religions,” and “Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion

Selected Publications

“The Intersections between Buddhism and Folk Religions in the Late Chosŏn: The Case Study of the Kitchen-God Cult,” International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture 30.1(2020).

“Kwanŭm (Avalokiteśvara) Divination: Buddhist Reconciliation with Confucianism in the Late Chosŏn,” Religions 11 (2020)

“Korean Confucianization of Zen: Ch’oŭi Ŭisun’s (1786–1866) Affirmation of a Confucian Literati Approach to Buddhism in Late Chosŏn,” Acta Koreana (2016)

“The Zen Theory of Language: Linji Yixuan’s Teaching of ‘Three Statements, Three Mysteries, and Three Essentials,’” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (2015)

Jungwon Kim

Jungwon Kim

Director of Graduate Studies, King Sejong Associate Professor of Korean Studies

Office: 402 Kent Hall
Office Hours: F 4:00-6:00 pm
Email: jk3638@columbia.edu

Educational Background

PhD: Harvard University
AM: Harvard University

Classes Taught

ASCE UN1363 Introduction to East Asian Civilizations: Korea
EAAS UN3412 Colloquium on Conflict & Culture in Korean History
HEAS UN3862 The History of Korea to 1900
EAAS GU4310 Narrating Premodern Korea
HSEA GU4860 Culture and Society of Chosŏn Korea, 1392-1910
EAAS GU4888 Women and Gender in Korean History
HSEA GR8861 Colloquium on Korean History to 1900
HSEA GR9860 Seminar on Korean Historical Texts

Research Interests

Premodern Korean History; Legal History; Gender and Sexuality; Women’s Writing

Jungwon Kim is a historian of premodern Korea, specializing in the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910). Her research focuses on gender and sexuality, law and justice, crime and punishment, ritual and emotion, women’s writings, and the history of knowledge.

She is the author of Virtue That Matters: Chastity Culture and Social Power in Chosŏn Korea, 1392–1910 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2025), which received an honorable mention for the 2025 Book Prize from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender. Her other publications include the co-authored Wrongful Death: Selected Inquest Records from Nineteenth-Century Korea (University of Washington Press, 2014) and the co-edited Beyond Death: The Politics of Suicide and Martyrdom in Korea (University of Washington Press, 2019). She also edited the special issue “Archives, Archival Practices, and the Writing of History in Premodern Korea” (Journal of Korean Studies, 2019). Her articles have appeared in journals including Acta Koreana, Gender & History, Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Women’s History, Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture, and Journal of Korean Studies.

She is currently working on a book manuscript on law, local courts, and the administration of justice in Chosŏn Korea. She earned her PhD from Harvard University, previously taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton before joining Columbia.

Selected Publications

Virtue That Matters: Chastity Culture and Social Power in Chosŏn Korea, 1392-1910 (Harvard University Press, 2025)

“Inscribing Grievances, Litigation, and Local Community in Eighteenth-Century Korea,” Journal of Asian Studies 81.2 (2022)

Beyond Death: The Politics of Suicide and Martyrdom in Korean History (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019), co-edited with Charles Kim, Hwasook Nam, and Serk-bae Suh.

“Between Morality and Crime: Filial Daughters and Vengeful Violence in Eighteenth Century Korea,” Acta Koreana (2018)

Wrongful Deaths: Selected Inquest Records from Nineteenth Century Korea (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014), co-authored with Sun Joo Kim.

“You Must Avenge on My Behalf: Widow Chastity and Honor in Nineteenth-Century Korea”, Gender and History (2014)

Ji-Young Jung

Ji-Young Jung

Senior Lecturer in Korean, Director of the Korean Language Program

Office: 502-D Kent Hall
Office Hours: M/W 1:00-2:00 PM
Email: jj277@columbia.edu

Educational Background

Ed.D. Applied Linguistics, Teachers College, Columbia University
Ed.M. Applied Linguistics, Teachers College, Columbia University
M.A. TESOL, Teachers College, Columbia University

Classes Taught

Introductory Korean
First Year Korean
Accelerated Korean for Heritage Speakers
Third Year Korean
Fourth Year Korean

Research Interests

Intercultural Pragmatics
Second Language Acquisition
Heritage Language Education

Ji-Young Jung joined EALAC in 2018. Her teaching repertoire spans a wide range of courses, including Korean for Heritage Speakers and language-and-content courses such as Current Korean Media and Advanced Readings in Korean. Before coming to Columbia, she taught at the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University. She is a co-author of Integrated Korean: Accelerated I and II and High Advanced I and II, part of the KLEAR Korean Textbook Series (University of Hawai‘i Press), the most widely used Korean language textbook series in North America. Her contributions also include serving on the task force that developed the College Korean Curriculum Inspired by the National Standards for Korean in 2015. In addition, Ji-Young Jung holds full certification as a tester for both ACTFL’s OPI, a widely used language proficiency assessment tool in academic and professional contexts, and the ILR OPI, an assessment instrument used by the U.S. government and military.

Selected Publications

Integrated Korean: High Advanced 1 & High Advanced 2 (co-author, University of Hawai‘i Press, 2025)

Korean for Specific Purposes. In A. S. Byon and D. O. Pyun (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Korean as a Second Language (pp. 194-221) (Routledge, 2022)

Integrated Korean: Accelerated 1 & Accelerated 2 (co-author, University of Hawai‘i Press, 2020 & 2021)

Literacies and Multiliteracies in Korean Language Learning and Teaching. In Y. Y. Cho (Ed.) Teaching Korean as a Foreign Language: Theories and Practices (pp. 117-146). (co-author, Routledge, 2021).

Citizen sociolinguistics: Making connections in the foreign language classroom. Korean Language in America, 22(1), 1-24 (co-author, 2018)