Ruth Barraclough

Korea Foundation Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, Department of History; Director, Center for Korean Research

Office: 913 IAB
Email: rb3029@columbia.edu

Educational Background

BA (Honours) University of Queensland
PhD Australian National University

Classes Taught

HIST UN2851 Making Modern Korea
HIST GU4872 North Korean History, Culture and Politics

Research Interests

Ruth Barraclough is an historian of modern Korea with a focus on labor, gender, and literature.

Her first book, Factory Girl Literature: Sexuality, Violence and Representation in Industrializing Korea, was about the working-class women and girls who generated Korea’s industrialization while cherishing ambitions to be writers, novelists, and poets. In Korea the book spent twenty weeks on the history best-seller list, was nominated for the President’s summer reading list by Korea’s leading book and newspaper editors, and was named one of the top ten books of 2017.

In addition to academic work, Dr. Barraclough has served as Vice-President of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (2023) and as a board member of the Australia Korea Foundation (2018-23) to advise the Australian government on new areas of cooperation between the two countries. In her work for the board, she was instrumental in establishing a Visiting Chair of Australian Studies at Seoul National University. At Columbia, Dr. Barraclough is the new Faculty Director of the Dual Degree Masters in International and World History with LSE and from January 2025 is the Director of the Center for Korean Research at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.

Before joining Columbia in 2024, Dr. Barraclough served on the faculty at the Australian National University.