Bard College names new professor for Korean Studies

Bard College has hired Dr. Soonyoung Lee as a visiting assistant professor in Korean Studies for the 2023”“24 academic year.

According to the Annandale-on-Hudson school, this hire is the first step toward building a Korean Program at Bard. The school received funding from the Korea Foundation to support Lee’s hiring.

Lee joins Bard from the University of California, Riverside, where she received her PhD in Comparative Literature and Foreign Languages in 2023. Her areas of research and teaching interests include contemporary Korean literature and film, Korean popular culture, East Asian film, Cold War studies, trans-Asian cultural studies, critical race theories, and postcolonial studies. She will teach courses on Korean literature, cultural history, and introductory courses to Korean language, including an online network course with Bard High School Early Colleges and the Open Society University Network.

“We are beyond delighted to receive the support of the Korea Foundation to begin offering Korean language and literature courses at Bard for the first time,” said Nathan Shockey, associate professor of Japanese, who worked together with Heeryoon Shin, assistant professor of art history and visual culture, to bring Korean courses to Bard. “This grant gives us the opportunity to meet the long-standing student interest in and demand for Korean Studies, and we are excited to continue growing Korean at Bard as part of our expansion of the Asian Studies program.”