Biophobia: A Symposium on Transnational Korean Studies

About This Event

This symposium proposes biophobia (aversion to bodily matter) as a critical framework to unravel the complex relation between negative emotions and post/colonial body politics in Korean and transnational contexts. Aversion to certain groups or statuses of body is not just an emotion but a richly social, cultural, and political phenomenon, as it, by invoking bodily responses, functions to patrol social boundaries and norms, such as righteousness and cleanliness. The feeling’s immediacy to the body is a basis of its social power.

Featured Guests

Jinhee Chohan (activist, Damom action) Rachel Lee (UCLA) Katie Yook (curator) Se Young Au (Artist, CA) KimSu Theiler (Artist, NY) Jette Hye MJin Mortensen (Artist, Roskilde, Copenhagen) Jung Joon Lee (Rhode Island School of Design/Cornell University fellow) Walter Byongsok Chon (Ithaca College) Bonnie Chung (Cornell) Abel Song Han (Cornell) Paul McQuade (Cornell) Jomy Abraham (Cornell) Jun Matsuda (Cornell)

Co-sponsors

Cornell East Asia Program, Association for Asian Studies