Young-a PARK, Ph.D.

Educational Background

Specializations

Young-a Park’s research and teaching interests cover issues of post-authoritarian politics, film
industry, social movements, state-civil society relations, neoliberalism, and migration in South
Korea. Her first book—Unexpected Alliances: Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film
Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea—was published in 2015 by Stanford University Press.
Her book investigates the unprecedented interplay between independent filmmakers, the state,
and the mainstream film industry under the post-authoritarian administrations of Kim Dae Jung
(1998–2003) and Roh Moo Hyun (2003–2008), and shows how these alliances were critical in
the making of today’s Korean film industry.

She is currently working on a new book on North Korean defectors’ strategies in obtaining
cultural membership in the context of emergent neoliberal resettlement policies in South Korea.

Courses

• ASAN 320K: Asian Past and Present: Korea.
• ASAN 420: Korean Cinema.
• ASAN 491K: North Korean History and Culture.
• ASAN 600K: Approaches to Asia: Korea.
• ASAN 695: Plan B Culminating Experience.
• ASAN 750K: Research Seminar in Asian Studies. 
• ASAN 320K: Asian Past and Present: Korean Culture and Society

Selected Publications

• Preparation for submission. Limits of Belonging: An Ethnography on North Korean Defectors in South Korea (expression of interest from Stanford U. Press, University of Hawai‘i Press, and Routledge).
• In preparation for submission. “The Representations of North Korean Food: North Korean Refugee Politics, Nostalgia, and Meaning Making in South Korea."
• Under Review. “The Construction of North Korean Defector Subjectivity in Neoliberal South Korea.”
• “North Korean Migrants in South Korea: ‘Multicultural’ or ‘Global' Citizens?” Korean Studies 44: 123-148, 2020.
• “Changing Representations of the Urban Poor in Korean Independent Cinema” (First author, co-authored with Do-Hoon Lee and Keith Wagner). Special Issue, “Beyond Hallyu,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 34(4): 361-378, 2017.
• “Unexpected Alliances: Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Post-authoritarian South Korea.” Stanford University Press, 2015.
• “New Activist Cultural Production: Independent Filmmakers, the Post-authoritarian State, and New Capital Flows in South Korea.” Gi-Wook Shin and Paul Chang (eds.). Korean Social Movements: From Democracy to Civil Society. Routledge, 2011.