How are young people around the world organizing amid a global polycrisis—democratic backsliding, rising fascism, war/genocide & climate catastrophe? Join the ASA CBSM @asa-cbsm.bsky.social virtual conversation on Global Youth Mobilization! 📅 Dec 8, 2025, 11AM (Chicago Time) RSVP: bit.ly/3K1ZUIi

Join us for a workshop on publishing books in Korean studies (broadly defined). Speakers will tackle questions like: How long from idea to contract? How to pitch to editors? What goes in the book vs. articles? How to stay authentic? 🗓 Nov 12 (Wed), 3:30-5PM EST 🔗 Sign up: bit.ly/dkscbookwork...

Join us for a virtual conversation with ASA Human Rights Section Book Award winners, Chana Teeger and Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman, on race, memory, and injustice. I’ll be moderating this discussion. 📅 November 19 (Wed) 10–11 AM CST / 4–5 PM GMT RSVP: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

A new article out: “Flexible Masculinities: Negotiating Gender, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Global Asia.” I introduce the concept of “flexible masculinities” to understand how people navigate shifting gender norms across different cultural and geographic contexts. doi.org/10.1177/0011...

Please spread the word! 📢 My PhD student Kajal Patel is recruiting interviewees for her dissertation research on the children of Gujarati immigrant families. If you grew up helping in your family’s business, please share your stories with Kajal: 📧 [email protected]

I’ll be visiting Budapest as a Junior Fellow at the IAS-CEU @iasceu.bsky.social during Fall 2025. I look forward to engaging with other fellows, visiting scholars, and artists in residence. Friends and colleagues passing through Eastern Europe are most welcome to connect.

Join us for a roundtable reflecting on the decade since Feminism Reboot (2015), a turning point in feminist and queer politics and scholarship in South Korea. Together, we’ll reflect on what has shifted, what has stalled, and what futures we might imagine. Register here: bit.ly/46jg871

I’ll be giving talks both in Taipei and Seoul later this month. If anybody’s around, please feel free to come by and connect.

My new open-access article in the British Journal of Sociology explores how Korean queer activists envision and enact social change by rethinking “the global”—shifting from UN human rights frameworks to regional solidarities across Asia.

Eighty years ago today in 1945, Korea was freed after 35 years under Japanese colonial rule—a day we remember as “the day the light returned (광복절).” On this anniversary, many Koreans hold in hearts the hope of liberation for other occupied lands and colonized peoples.

Two days ago, a 23-year-old Vietnamese construction worker, Ngo Duy Long, died from heatstroke at a worksite in South Korea. It was his first day on the job. While Korean workers left at 1PM in 99°F heat, Long and other migrant workers worked until 4PM. He was found collapsed, body temp 104.4°F.

How ironic that the deeply homophobic government of my home country, South Korea, is sponsoring an international screening of a queer film—Love in the Big City (2024), based on Sang Young Park’s bestselling novel—as a representation of K-culture abroad. 🤷‍♂️

Yesterday, queer activists from the national LGBTQ coalition Rainbow Action and Palestine solidarity activists issued a joint statement urging an end to the silence on Palestine. Over 3,000 Korean LGBTQ community members and allies have signed the solidarity petition: campaigns.do/campaigns/1577

As South Korea’s newly elected President Lee Jae-myung pledges to rebuild democracy, revive the economy, and foster a just and safe society, several long-running grassroots protests across the country highlight challenges ahead and call on the government to turn promises into meaningful action.

“Can the past help the present? Can the dead save the living?” (Han Kang)

In this collective conversation at @sexandsexualities.bsky.social, Jyoti Puri, Sa’ed Atshan, Zine Magubane, and I discussed the intersections of empire, race, sexuality, and gender in history and in the present. doi.org/10.1177/3033...

“As a field largely institutionalized within US academia during the Cold War, Korean studies has long operated as a knowledge project that served the strategic and ideological interests of the US empire. The production of academic knowledge about Korea was never neutral.”

“Gwangju is not over. The perpetrators have never been fully held accountable, and South Korea’s official narrative of post-dictatorship democracy has obscured the enduring effects of military rule… Gwangju is not just a traumatic event happened in 1980—it remains deeply embedded in the present.”

Lee Ok-sun, a survivor of the Japanese military‘s wartime sexual slavery system known as “comfort women,” has died at the age of 97. Her death leaves only six registered survivors of the officially recognized victims.

Keimyung University in Daegu, South Korea, is shutting down its Women’s Studies grad program (one of only two independent departments in the country) merging it into Sociology, sparking strong backlash against an undemocratic move disguised as a response to low enrollment and financial strain.

How can I stay ethically and politically grounded while still extending care and generosity? Keep my eyes open to pain and injustice without being paralyzed by despair? Long for more without letting it turn into self-doubt or resentment? The long spring semester’s over, but nothing feels clear.

In the US, screenings of documentaries like No Other Land and The Encampments have been banned or canceled on campuses. In South Korea, a university-run theater has banned the screening of queer films. What’s allowed on campus speaks volumes about the current landscape of higher education.

Professor Kim Seok-ho, the chair of the sociology department at Seoul National University recently joined the presidential campaign of former acting president Han Duck-soo as its head fundraiser. Han is widely recognized as a key figure in the self-coup attempt by impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol.

2025 marks 50 years since the end of the US war in Vietnam. Yet South Korea’s role, including its troops’ violence against civilians, remains underacknowledged. Tied to US-led militarism, Korean soldiers served as racialized, gendered labor in a broader system of imperial violence and exploitation.

Please join the ASA Global/Transnational Section and UP Diliman for the virtual event, Decolonizing Sociology: Centering the Global South. Panelists will share their visions for decolonization led by the Global South. May 2 (Fri), 9AM EST, 1PM GMT | Zoom: tinyurl.com/ASAGATSUP | PW: UPDiliman

Join us for a virtual conversation exploring global resistance to democratic backsliding. We’ll discuss how social movements are pushing back against right-wing regimes around the world, with a focus on immigration, higher eduction, and gender and reproductive justice. Register: bit.ly/CBSMevent

The new ASA journal, Sex & Sexualities, has launched, and its inaugural issue will be released in May. I‘ve joined the editorial board with amazing colleagues.

However painful, spring does come.

In dark times, when a public post on social media can lead to enforced disappearance or human trafficking, community building and organizing take place in unexpected and unseen spaces, beyond our CVs.

It’s hard to keep up with anything these days, but I’m grateful that my new article, “Decolonizing the Global: Contested Cosmopolitanisms in Global Queer Activism,” is finally out—after seven rejections over eight years: doi.org/10.1111/1468...

We’re organizing a publication mentoring workshop for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars whose work engages with Korea (broadly defined) or the Korean diaspora. Selected participants will be matched with expert mentors for in-depth feedback. Submit your work-in-progress by May 9!

Join us on Friday for a special community screening of Until the Stones Speak 돌들이 말할 때까지, which follows the stories of five women who survived the Jeju April 3 Massacre and state violence during the Cold War. This event also commemorates other instances of state violence in South Korea.

Solidarity for LGBT Human Rights of Korea released a statement celebrating Yoon’s impeachment and calling for the opening of a “spring of equality”: “Citizens insisted that a regime change is not enough, and that we cannot return to the pre-martial law ‘normalcy.’”

South Korean President Yoon was removed from office 123 days after attempting martial law, following a unanimous Constitutional Court ruling. People across Korea are celebrating in the streets, while millions in the Korean diaspora watched the decision via livestream.

South Korea is burning, with wildfires engulfing a quarter of the country and killing 18. The disaster was worsened by the right-wing government’s budget cuts to prevention. Yet, instead of deploying water cannons to fight the flames, they used them to suppress pro-democracy protesters in Seoul.

Activists from various groups in South Korea have been on a hunger strike for over a week since the release of the impeached president. Among them is my dear friend, Horim Yi—a public health scholar and LGBTQ activist. In these dark times, I try to find hope in their courage and perseverance.

I saw a live theater show at a community center. Afterward, the director explained how federal budget cuts to the NEA are hurting theaters citywide. Still, they refuse to censor or change their programs. I admired their commitment to their values—and felt ashamed that higher ed gives in so easily.

For years, US-South Korea joint military exercises (“war games”) have led to injuries and deaths among Korean civilians, and it’s infuriating to see this cycle repeating over and over.

Since last year, we’ve hosted a monthly gathering for Korean Queer/Trans/Nonbinary Sociologists, a support network for scholars at different career stages worldwide. We’re launching Ask a Queer Sociologist, a virtual series where we engage with prominent sociologists to learn about their journeys.

Friends in Taiwan commemorate 228 Memorial Day this weekend, while friends in South Korea mark March First Independence Movement Day. It reminds us that we still live with the legacies of dictatorship but also with the impact of people’s movements for anti-colonial independence and democracy.

Support reproductive justice with SHARE! SHARE is leading the fight for reproductive justice in South Korea, providing vital work for youth, queers, migrants, and refugees seeking abortion care, creating inclusive sex education, and producing resources on sexual and reproductive health. srhr.kr/63

Just noticed that a lot of conferences coming up in Chicago. If you’re coming to town and want to grab coffee or just hang out, hit me up! Especially if you’re a grad student or early-career scholar working on global, transnational, decolonial stuff, I’d love to connect.

On my way to Hyde Park to give a talk based on my book project in progress. Looking forward to the conversation with colleagues and grad students!

This is an undeniably challenging time, which makes it all the more important to recognize and celebrate critical feminist scholarship that drives social change. The nomination deadline is extended to Mar 3. Please nominate yourself or other feminist scholars in your community—wherever they may be!

Getting back to campus after a year off, I was afraid to discuss certain topics, or how far I could go, without knowing how students would respond in times of escalating fascism. On day 1, I had to share my vulnerability. To my surprise, most students expressed a yearning to learn and engage more.

I keep forgetting it’s Seollal (Lunar New Year)—with so much happening, news after news, blow after blow, it’s hard to find the emotional capacity to celebrate or even send greetings. But here we are. Wishing strength and solidarity to all.

Well, it’s time for other democracies to learn from a functioning democracy in which the people can hold their own elected leader accountable. And let’s not forget that this democratic action has been driven by feminists, queer and trans folks, labor unions, farmers, and people with disabilities.

For this semester, I’m teaching a graduate seminar on Professional Writing in Sociology. As part of the course, I’m hosting virtual info sessions with editors from leading sociology journals to demystify the publication process and support grad students in their writing journey.

We’re launching DKSC Reads, a new series engaging works that revitalize decolonizing Korean studies through collective reading and discussion. I’m honored that my essay, “Queer Theory Impossible,” will be our first shared reading. Please feel free to sign up and join us.

As my sabbatical winds down in the middle of a civil war where a treasonous leader is turning soldiers into a private militia, preparing for the next semester feels utterly surreal. I’m thinking of everyone in the diaspora who must keep navigating life despite the never-ending crises back home.