About KORE - KORE

The Korean Office for Research and Education (KORE), at the York Centre for Asian Research, is an interdisciplinary collaboration of Korean Studies scholars at York University in Toronto and their broader network locally and around the world. Established in February 2018 with the Core University Program for Korean Studies grant from the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS), KORE’s mandate is the advancement and promotion of new, critical, comparative and transnational Korean Studies across Canada. The major initiatives of faculty members across the disciplines of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, Politics, Visual Art and Art History, Humanities, and Sociology, enhance, promote and expand Korean Studies education and research in Canada. Our scholars play a leadership role in directing cutting-edge research and facilitating intellectual exchanges regionally and internationally, and they support teaching initiatives and undergraduate/graduate education at York University and elsewhere. Through funding and scholarship awards, knowledge exchange and workshops, research supervision and mentorship, course and program development, experiential education, and more, KORE supports young scholars (postdoctoral fellows and graduate students) and a growing number of undergraduate students.

In 2018, KORE members at York University and associate members at seven other universities launched a five-year project, Korea in the World, and World in Korean Studies.

Director/Korean Diaspora Director: Ann Kim (Sociology)
Deputy Director: Mihyon Jeon (Languages, Literatures and Linguistics)
Korea Region Director: Laam Hae (Politics)

Diagram for KORE structure provided by Ann Kim — **KORE is structured along two broad, overlapping research specializations:**

Composed of scholars specialized in various subjects of Korean politics, this cluster focuses on the trajectory, current dynamism and anticipated pathways of Korean politics. It covers the following research topics: the evolution of democratization and party politics in Korea, the continuing relevance of labour movements, transformative politics of feminist uprisings, newly emerging urban activism, equal rights struggles by LGBTQ activism, and the trans-Pacific military-industrial-complex and anti-imperialist politics in Korea. Researchers examine how these different political dynamics, in combination, create a unique political landscape in Korea and interrogate the transformative potential and transnational relevance of Korean politics.

This interdisciplinary area encompasses Korean Diaspora, broadly defined, as the study of the dispersion of Korean culture and of people with Korean origins, who maintain some connection with Korea, imagined or symbolic, instrumental, transnational, and otherwise, to all parts of the world and in different historical periods. Understandably, given our geographic location in Canada, our research tends to focus on Korean migration to Canada and the development and dynamics of local people and communities but it also addresses a globalizing Korea and the spread of its culture, artifacts, memories, and ideas. Our boundaries are fluid, flexible, and inclusive. KORE at YCAR/York is now a premiere intellectual hub for Korean Diaspora research in Canada (and quite possibly, the world).