Korean Studies in the Nation’s Capital and Beyond
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
3:00 PM – 4:30 PM EDT
Lindner Family Commons
1957 E ST NW Room 602
AND via Zoom
**THIS IS A HYBRID EVENT. There will be limited in-person registration for attendance at the George Washington University’s Elliott School for International Affairs. All in-person attendees must adhere to GW’s COVID-19 policy, including showing proof of vaccination and masking indoors. There will also be registration available to attend virtually via Zoom**
The George Washington University Institute for Korean Studies (GWIKS) is the only institute devoted to the development of Korean Studies and is the central hub for faculty, students, and leading scholars in the metropolitan area of Washington, DC. The establishment of GWIKS in Fall 2016 was made possible by a generous grant from the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS). The institute has since continued to grow over the past five years due to support from AKS, the KDI School of Public Policy and Management, the Korea Foundation, and a generous endowment from our guests of honor, Mr. Tom Chong Hoon Kim and Mrs. Pearl Chungbin Kim. As GWIKS celebrates its 5th anniversary, we are honored to host the Kim family as our special guests as we look back on GWIKS’ achievements over the past five years. We have invited four distinguished panelists to share their experience working with GWIKS as we continue our mission of strengthening and growing Korean Studies in the nation’s capital and beyond. A panel discussion with our four speakers will be followed by a reception with drinks and light hors d’oeuvres. Please join us in celebrating the GWIKS 5th anniversary with our distinguished guests, alumni, faculty, and students.
For a detailed agenda, please see the Event Program. The event will be in-person by RSVP only via EventBrite.
This event is on the record and open to the public.
Speakers
Alyssa Ayres Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Ayres is a foreign policy practitioner and award-winning author with senior experience in the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. From 2013 to 2021, she was senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where she remains an adjunct senior fellow. Ayres has been awarded numerous fellowships and has received four group or individual Superior Honor Awards for her work at the State Department. She speaks Hindi and Urdu, and in the mid-1990s worked as an interpreter for the International Committee of the Red Cross. She received an AB from Harvard College and an MA and PhD from the University of Chicago. She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Halifax International Security Forum’s agenda working group, and a member of the Women’s Foreign Policy Group board of directors.
Jong-il You graduated from Seoul National University and received his Ph. D in Economics from Harvard University. He taught at University of Cambridge, University of Notre Dame and Ritsumeikan University before taking a professorship at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management. He also had Visiting Professor positions at University of California, San Diego and University of Beijing. Dr. You is widely published in such areas as economic growth and income distribution, macroeconomic and development policies, and labor issues. He has been active as a policy advisor and served as a member of the Presidential Committee on Northeast Asia Economic Hub and chaired the Special Committee on Economic Democracy of the Democratic Party. He also served as a member of the Public Funds Management Committee, the Advisory Committee for the Constitutional Revision Committee of the National Assembly, and the Commission on Financial Administration Reform. As a leader in civic movement, he is currently the Head of Knowledge Cooperative for Good Governance, a network of researchers, and the President of Jubilee Bank, an NGO working to help debt-stricken low-income individuals.
Roy Kim has served as the General Managing Partner of Central Bethany Development Company, a commercial real estate development firm responsible for the development of the master planned community of Bethany Village, west of Portland in Washington County, Oregon since 1992. The community consists of grocery anchored shopping center, apartments, office buildings, condos and townhomes, an athletic center and a senior living community. He received his B.S. from University of California, Berkeley and his M.S. from Stanford University, both in Civil Engineering. He is an active member in the community, serving on numerous boards and committees.
Panelists
Kathleen Stephens is the President and CEO of the Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI). A former U.S. Foreign Service Officer, she served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea from 2008 to 2011. Her other overseas assignments included postings to China, former Yugoslavia, Portugal, Northern Ireland, where she was U.S. Consul General in Belfast during the negotiations culminating in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, and India, where she was U.S. Charge ‘d Affaires (2014-2015). Ambassador Stephens also served in a number of policy positions in Washington at the Department of State and the White House. These included acting Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (2012), Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (2005-2007), Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (2003-2005), and National Security Council Director for European Affairs at the Clinton White House.
Roy Richard Grinker is Professor of Anthropology, International Affairs, and Human Sciences at the George Washington University. He is a cultural anthropologist specializing in ethnicity, nationalism, and psychological anthropology, with topical expertise in autism, Korea, and sub-Saharan Africa. He has conducted research on a variety of subjects: ethnic relationships between farmers and foragers in the Ituri forest, Democratic Republic of Congo; North and South Korean relations, with special emphasis on North Korean defectors’ adaptation to South Korea life; and the epidemiology of autism. In addition, he has written a biography of the anthropologist Colin M. Turnbull and his new book Nobody’s Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness (W.W. Norton) will be published in January 2021. He was Interim Director of the GW Institute for Korean Studies for the Fall 2016 semester.
Sung Won Bae is the Director of the Korea Foundation USA. Prior to starting his term as Director of the Korea Foundation USA in February 2022, he served as the Director of the Korea Foundation’s office in Jakarta, Indonesia. Bae’s previous positions within the Korea Foundation include assignments as the Deputy Director of the Global Network Department, as Director of the Los Angeles office, and as a Senior Officer in the Global Network Department. Director Bae graduated from Yonsei University with a B.A. in Economics.
Tinaz Pavri is Division Chair for Social Sciences and Education at Spelman College and Founding Director of the Asian Studies Program. She is a professor in the department of Political Science. Her research and publication interests lie in the area of security studies and conflict resolution, questions of national identity and globalization in South Asia. She has published numerous articles, book chapters and a co-edited book on these and other topics. Her book Bombay in the Age of Disco: City, Community, Life was published in 2015. She has served as President of the Georgia Political Science Association (GPSA) and is their 2015 recipient of the Donald T. Wells award for outstanding service. She directs Spelman’s $1.2m grant project, the Career Pathways Initiative.
Moderator
Jisoo M. Kim is Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures. She currently serves as the Director of the Institute for Korean Studies and the Co Director of the East Asia National Resource Center at GW. She also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Korean Studies. She is a specialist in gender, law, and emotions in Korean history. 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 a book project tentatively entitled Sexual Desire, Crime, and Gendered Subjects: A History of Adultery Law in Korea. She received her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University.
