Military Labor and Military Prostitution Across South Korea, Vietnam and the United States, 1960-1970s

The Centre for the Study of Korea Seminar Series Presents: "Military Labor and Military Prostitution Across South Korea, Vietnam and the United States, 1960-1970s", a talk by Jin-kyung Lee (University of California, San Diego), Thursday October 22, 12-2pm, 208N, Munk Centre for International Studies.

To register, visit: http://webapp.mcis.utoronto.ca/EventDetails.aspx?EventId=7874

Description

This presentation will explore South Korean military participation in Vietnam (1965-1973) and South Korean and Vietnamese military sex work for US and South Korean troops. It focuses on South Korean literary representations that examine the linkages between military labor and military sex work as related but hierarchized types of racialized, gendered and sexualized proletarian labors. Through its reading of several key literary texts, the paper attempts to situate differentiated militarization of gendered sexualities?articulated in the form of military labor and military sex work during the Vietnam War era?in the context of South Korea?s state-led industrialization and the American Cold War expansionism in the greater Asian region.

Jin-kyung Lee is Associate Professor in the Department of Literature at University of California, San Diego, where she teaches modern Korean literature. She received her Ph. D. in Comparative Literature from UCLA. Her book, titled, Proletarianizing Sexuality and Race: Transnational Labors of South Korea since 1965, is forthcoming from University of Minnesota Press. She is currently working on another book project, tentatively titled, Modernizing Governance: New Conceptions of Politics, Economics, and Aesthetics in Colonial Korea, 1910-1925.
Main Sponsor

Centre for the Study of Korea
Co-sponsored by
Asian Institute