The GW Institute for Korean Studies and the Jeju Peace Institute Present:
Virtual Event
Challenges of Reopening:
South Korea’s COVID-19 Experience
Thursday, June 18, 2020
09:00 a.m. – 10:20 a.m. (EDT)
10:00 p.m. – 11:20 p.m. (KST)
Livestream via Zoom
Registered guests will receive following Eventbrite confirmation email with details for joining the Zoom virtual event.
This event is on the record and open to the public.
Event Description
As the U.S. is aiming at the next stages of reopening, the South Korean case would provide a rare example of a new normal in the coronavirus era, instituting both social distancing and other preventative measures. South Korea has led the world’s efforts to move toward the initial phases of reopening, after emerging as a successful model of flattening the curve of COVID-19. South Korea officially loosened social distancing guidelines and shifted to a more relaxed ‘distancing in daily life’ by reopening schools, museums, libraries, and resuming professional baseball and soccer leagues. However, the South Korean case also shows that reopening is still an enormously complicated and challenging task while the virus is still spreading. New clusters of the coronavirus have been identified and many schools were closed just a few days after reopening. In addition, the social costs and vulnerable workforce revealed in the pandemic era will have to be taken care of. Please join GW Institute for Korean Studies and Jeju Peace Institute for an online discussion by both South Korean and American journalists on South Korea’s experience in reopening in the coronavirus era.
Speakers
Sarah Kim, Staff Reporter, Korea JoongAng Daily
Sarah Kim (left) is a reporter on the National Desk of the Korea JoongAng Daily, published with the New York Times International Edition. She specializes in foreign affairs and security issues at the paper but also has covered health, education, and social affairs. She is the recipient of the 2019 Foreign Language Newspapers Association of Korea (FNA) award for journalists. Kim has appeared on radio programs including TBS, Arirang, KBS World, and BBC. She organized and cohosted the 2018 Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity’s Ambassadors’ Round Table session. She previously has worked as an English language instructor in Seoul and a legal assistant in New York. Kim holds a bachelor’s degree in History and English from Middlebury College.
Victoria Kim, Seoul Correspondent, L.A. Times
Victoria Kim (right) is the Seoul correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. Since joining the paper in 2007, she has covered state and federal courts, worked on investigative projects, and reported on Southern California’s Korean community. She has previously written for the Associated Press out of South Korea and West Africa, as well as for the Financial Times in New York. Kim was raised in Seoul and graduated from Harvard University with a degree in history.
Discussants
Seung Min Kim, White House Correspondent, The Washington Post
Seung Min Kim (left) is a White House reporter for The Washington Post, covering the Trump administration through the lens of Capitol Hill. Before joining The Washington Post in 2018, she spent more than eight years at Politico, primarily covering the Senate and immigration policy. Kim is also an on-air political analyst for CNN.
Timothy Martin, Seoul Bureau Chief, Wall Street Journal
Tim Martin (right) is the Korea bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, where he oversees news coverage on the Korean Peninsula. He has been based in Seoul since early 2017, with prior stints at the Journal’s offices in New York, Chicago and Atlanta—where he covered public health and the CDC.
Moderator
Jisoo M. Kim, Director, GW Institute for Korean Studies
Jisoo M. Kim is Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures and Director of the Institute for Korean Studies at GW. She received her Ph.D. in Korean History from Columbia University. She is a specialist in gender and legal history of early modern Korea. Her broader research interests include gender and sexuality, crime and justice, forensic medicine, literary representations of the law, history of emotions, vernacular, and gender writing. She is the author of The Emotions of Justice: Gender, Status, and Legal Performance in Chosŏn Korea (University of Washington Press, 2015), which was awarded the 2017 James Palais Prize of the Association for Asian Studies. She is also the co-editor of The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation by JaHyun Kim Haboush (Columbia University Press, 2016). She is currently working on two book projects titled Suspicious Deaths: Forensic Medicine, Dead Bodies, and Criminal Justice in Chosŏn Korea and Sexual Desire and Gendered Subjects: Decriminalization of Adultery Law in Korean History.
(Image Credit: ABC News)
