At the bar of history, Korea can alternatively be called as a witness, an accused, or a plaintiff. The multi-secular trajectory of the Korean state indeed offers not one but a plurality of cases to investigate the relationships between violence, law, and justice conceived as interrelated social constructs and realities. Beyond the dichotomy of law as a tool of oppression or resistance, various Korean contexts particularly invite us to question the ambivalence of its roles, uses, and imaginings. These contexts include but are not limited to Korea’s experience with modern and pre-modern imperialisms, war and militarism, states of emergency and regimes of exception, systems of hierarchies and practices of discriminations, nation building and division, mass mobilization and repression, communism and anticommunism, modernization and globalization, with their associated modes of power and domination (whether political, economic, ideological, racial, sexual, etc.).

By enabling comparisons between different periods and processes, this conference aims at cross-historically and cross-disciplinarily examining how the production of legal normativity and performativity intersects with the (un)making of violence in Korea. Sites of analysis may comprise law in the books (such as bodies of legislation and jurisprudence), in action (via, for instance, the criminal system, judicial contests, or victims’ movements), and in fiction (through literature and film). The conference consequently welcomes papers interested in probing the intertwined operations as well as representations of violence, law, and justice from a wide range of temporal and topical perspectives.

Submissions by graduate students and early career scholars are especially encouraged. Due to limitations of funding and space, only a select number of papers whose subject matter closely fits the aims of the conference will be accepted. Contributions based on other East Asian cases will be exceptionally considered in light of their comparative relevance.

Organizer: Justine Guichard (Moon Family Postdoctoral Fellow)
Sponsor: Eugene Y. Park (Korea Foundation Associate Professor & Director of the Kim Program)
Date: April 28, 2017 (Friday)
Venue: University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)
Proposal Submission Deadline (extended): January 21, 2017
(Please include your full name, institutional affiliation, paper’s title, and 300-word abstract)
Final Paper Submission Deadline: March 31, 2017

Contact: guichard@sas.upenn.edu