Description

• 70 min screening of Living with Memories (2015). English subtitle.
Directed by Doi Toshikuni. For more information on the filmmaker, go to: http://doi-toshikuni.net/e/doc/pf.html

• Presentation by Kim Puja
Professor, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and Visiting Professor, Asian Institute

History of the former “comfort women,” or the survivors of the wartime Japanese military comfort system, otherwise known as the military sex enslavement (1937-1945), and their ongoing struggles for justice since the 1991 public testimony of Kim Hak-sun, have inspired many writers, artists, filmmakers, and scholars throughout the world. Belatedly released in 2015, Doi Toshikuni’s Living with Memories chronicles the everyday life and thoughts of several women survivors since twenty years ago, when the filmmaker began covering the issue in 1994. The workshop will feature a partial screening of the film and a presentation by Professor Kim Puja, the historian of gender and colonialism and longtime “comfort women” redress activist in Japan and Korea. Professor Kim will discuss the film’s historical significance and the special meaning it holds in contrast to other “comfort women” cultural representations. Doi has generously donated the film to the University of Toronto community.

Description

Decentering Citizenship follows three groups of Filipina migrants’ struggles to belong in South Korea: factory workers claiming rights as workers, wives of South Korean men claiming rights as mothers, and hostesses at American military clubs who are excluded from claims—unless they claim to be victims of trafficking. Moving beyond laws and policies, Hae Yeon Choo examines how rights are enacted, translated, and challenged in daily life and ultimately interrogates the concept of citizenship.

Choo reveals citizenship as a language of social and personal transformation within the pursuit of dignity, security, and mobility. Her vivid ethnography of both migrants and their South Korean advocates illuminates how social inequalities of gender, race, class, and nation operate in defining citizenship. Decentering Citizenship argues that citizenship emerges from negotiations about rights and belonging between South Koreans and migrants. As the promise of equal rights and full membership in a polity erodes in the face of global inequalities, this decentering illuminates important contestation at the margins of citizenship.

Hae Yeon Choo is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. Her book Decentering Citizenship: Gender, Labor, and Migrant Rights in South Korea (Stanford University Press, 2016) examines how inequalities of gender, race, and class affect migrant rights through a comparative study of three groups of Filipina women in South Korea—factory workers, wives of South Korean men, and club hostesses.

Discussants:

Anna Korteweg is Professor and Chair of Sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Her work problematizes the notion of “immigrant integration” and the ways in which belonging is defined in the intersections of gender, religion, ethnicity and national origin in Western Europe and Canada. Her co-authored book (with Gökçe Yurdakul), Headscarf Debates: Conflicts of National Belonging, was published by Stanford University Press in 2014.

Jesook Song is Professor at the Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto. She is an urban anthropologist of political economy and subject formation in finance, welfare, education, and neoliberalism, focusing on South Korean context. Her books include South Koreans in the Debt Crisis (Duke University Press 2009), Living on Your Own (SUNY Press 2014), New Millennium South Korea (editor, Routldged 2011).

Please join us for the post-event reception to welcome the start of CSK’s new academic year. During the event we will welcome Jesook Song as our interim director for the year. Beverages and food will be provided.

Description

This year’s Korea Week festival will be held under the theme of “Flavour of Korea: Culture, Language, and Cuisine”. The 2016 Korea Week will officially begin on Tuesday, October 11, with the final events taking place on Friday, October 14. There will be many various events showcasing the distnict and unique aspects of Korean culture all throughout the week right here at U of T.

As with last year’s Korea Week, UTKSA has once again partnered with the Centre for the Study of Korea at the Munk School of Global Affairs as well as the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Toronto to host the festival.

Co-hosts for the 2016 U of T Korea Week include the Korean Outreach Volunteer Association (KOVA), The Korea Club, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, East Asian Studies Student’s Union (EASSU), Contemporary Asian Studies Student’s Union (CASSU), and Global Leaders Association (GLA). All have helped prepare the numerous events to celebrate Korean culture and give everyone at U of T and in Toronto to experience a taste of Korea.

For a full list of event visit facebook.com/uoftkoreaweek