About
Nan Kim is an interdisciplinary scholar with interests in memory, political dissent, trauma, visual culture, and the interpretation of contested histories for public audiences. She serves on the editorial board of
Critical Asian Studies and was recently elected as a Councilor to join the board of the Society for East Asian Anthropology, a section of the American Anthropological Association. Her work has appeared in several publications, including
Forces of Nature: New Perspectives on Korean Environments (Cornell University Press, 2023) and
The Routledge Handbook on Trauma in East Asia (Routledge, 2023), and she is the author of
Memory, Reconciliation, and Reunions in South Korea: Crossing the Divide (Lexington Books, 2016), which won the first-book prize from the Peace History Society, an affiliate of the American Historical Association. She is Associate Professor of History and Faculty Affiliate in Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she directs the graduate program in Public History and serves on advisory boards for the Museum Studies program and the Center for 21st Century Studies. While her research often addresses Korea in global contexts, she has also worked on several local-history projects with community-based groups, art museums, historical societies, and other collaborative partners closer to her home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Education
PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
MA in Sociocultural Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
AB in English Language and Literature, Princeton University Publications
Book
Memory, Reconciliation, and Reunions in South Korea: Crossing the Divide. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017. Winner of the Scott H. Bills Memorial Prize for the best first book in peace history by the Peace History Society.
Articles and book chapters
“South Korea’s Nuclear-Energy Entanglements and the Timescales of Ecological Democracy” in David Fedman, Eleana Kim, and Albert L. Park, eds., Forces of Nature: New Perspectives on Korean Environments (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2023), 164-177.
“Commemorative Witness: ‘Gwangju in 1980’ and Unresolved Transitional Justice in 21st century South Korea,” in Jeff Kingston and Tina Burrett, eds., Routledge Handbook of Trauma in East Asia (London: Routledge, 2023).
“Contemporary History and the Contingency of the Present,” Verge: Studies in Global Asias 5, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 108-113.
“The Color of Dissent and a Vital Politics of Fragility in South Korea,” The Journal of Asian Studies 77, no. 4 (2018): 971-990.
“Candlelight and the Yellow Ribbon: Catalyzing Re-Democratization in South Korea,” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 15:14, no. 5 (2017).
“Reuniting Families, Reframing the Korean War: Inter-Korean Reconciliation and Vernacular Memory,” Routledge Handbook on Memory and Reconciliation in East Asia, ed. Mikyoung Kim. New York and London: Routledge, 2015.
“Korea on the Brink: Reading the Yŏnp’yŏng Shelling and its Aftermath” The Journal of Asian Studies 70, no. 2 (2011).
“Otros Hallazgos: Trabajos de Theresa Hak Kyung Cha” [Other Things Found: The Work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha], Arte Internacional, Museo de Arte Moderno (Bogotá, Colombia) 22, no. 5 (1994), 42-46.
