core faculty

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

JWKIMJungwon Kim

King Sejong Associate Professor of Korean Studies

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

Educational Background

PhD: Harvard University (’07)

Classes Taught

ASCE UN1363 Introduction to East Asian Civilizations: Korea

HEAS W3862 The History of Korea to 1900

EAAS W4310 Narrating Premodern Korea

HSEA W4860 Culture and Society of Chosŏn Korea, 1392-1910

EAAS W4888 Women and Gender in Korean History

HSEA G8861 Colloquium on Korean History to 1900
EAAS UN3412 Conflict & Culture in Korean History
HSEA GR9860 Korean Historical Texts

Research Interests

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

Jungwon Kim is a historian specializing in premodern Korea, with a focus on the Chosŏn Dynasty (1392-1910). Her research examines 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 Culure and Social Power in Chosŏn Korea, 1392-1910 (Harvard University Press, 2025). Her other works include co-authoring Wrongful Death: Selected Inquest Records from Nineteenth-Century 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 major journals, including Acta Koreana, Gender and History, Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Women’s History, Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture, and Journal of Korean Studies. She is currently completing a book manuscript, tentatively titled Families in Trials: Local Courts and Legal Culture 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 coming to Columbia.

Selected Publications

“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 Death: Selected Inquest Records from Nineteenth Century Korea (with Sun Joo Kim, Washington, 2014)

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

Robert P.W. Hymes

Robert Hymes

Carpentier Professor of Chinese History

Office: 504 Kent Hall
Phone: (212) 854-2580
Email: rph2@columbia.edu

Office hours: R 12-2:00PM, Please make an appointment in advance by email.

Educational Background

BA: Columbia College (’72)
MA: University of Pennsylvania (’75)
PhD: University of Pennsylvania (’79)

Classes Taught

EAAS UN3990 Approaches to East Asian Studies
HSEA GU4893 The Family in Chinese History
HSEA GR8883 Topics in the Middle Period of Chinese History

Research Interests

Middle-Period China, Social and Cultural History, Social Networks, Family and Kinship

Robert Hymes’ work focuses on the social and cultural history of middle period and early modern China, drawing questions and sometimes data from cultural anthropology as well as history, and using the methods of the local historian to study elite culture, family and kinship, medicine, religion, gender, and (currently) the changing role and form of Chinese social networks from the tenth through the seventeenth centuries. His monographs Statesmen and Gentlemen and Way and Byway won the Joseph Levenson Prize of the Association for Asian Studies for the best book on pre-1900 China in their years of publication.

Selected Publications

“Thoughts on the Problem of Historical Comparison between Europe and China,” in Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800–1600 (Oxford, forthcoming 2018)

Way and Byway: Taoism, Local Religion, and Models of Divinity in Sung and Modern China (University of California, 2002)

Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung (Cambridge, 1987)