Saeyoung Park
Warfare is a theme that cuts through my work. In particular, I am interested in the ways in which constellations of war—the War on Drugs, War and Memory, and the Weaponization of Finance —transform what I call political subjecthood, or very simply: subject/citizen and state relations. My methodological preferences most closely align with those found in History, Cultural Studies, and Critical IR. My archival research involves a creative use of ‘high’ culture sources such as government documents, munjip, poetry, financial reports as well as ‘low’ ones. Popular culture materials such as Chosŏn smoking manuals, tobacco advertisements, North and South Korean historical fiction, paintings of kisaeng and commoners, Chosŏn stories of cross-dressing martial women, 21st century ROK TV shows on North Koreans support my arguments.
Currently, I teach courses that serve Korean Studies, International Studies, and Asian Studies programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In the past, I have taught courses that supported History, GSS (Gender and Sexuality Studies), History of Science and Medicine programs.
Supervisors: William T. Rowe, Tobie Meyer-Fong, and Donald L. Baker
Currently, I teach courses that serve Korean Studies, International Studies, and Asian Studies programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In the past, I have taught courses that supported History, GSS (Gender and Sexuality Studies), History of Science and Medicine programs.
Supervisors: William T. Rowe, Tobie Meyer-Fong, and Donald L. Baker
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Law and Society (LSA) Annual Meeting, Mexico City, June 20-23 2017
Reminder, due date: October 18, 2016
The International Research Collaboration (IRC) " On Financialization and Violence " proceeds from the position that the boundaries between traditional and non-traditional forms of conflict are eroding rapidly, yet research has not caught up with this reality. Situated at the intersection of financialization and violence, we envision the IRC cohering around three themes: (a) weaponization of finance and the future of economic warcraft; (b)intimacy, personhood, and financialization; and (c) democracy and economic human rights. We invite participants to submit papers on the above themes. Original interdisciplinary papers situated in the non-West or the Global South are especially appreciated. There are no chronological limitations.
This IRC broadly envisions financialization as a set of practices, discourses, and epistemologies that mediate the contested reordering of the world along lines of credit, assets, capital mobility and extraction. Single papers and preformed panels that may consider our violent encounters with the architecture of transborder finance, or that explore how logics of financialization are often imbricated in state-sponsored systems of value, security, and regulation are of interest. Please feel free to email the IRC organizers, Laura Elder (lelder@saintmarys.edu) and Saeyoung Park (s.park@hum.leidenuniv.nl) with questions. Submissions through the conference website must note that paper or panel is intended for consideration under this IRC —please include the IRC number (IRC#28) in your proposal.
IRC#28 at the LSA: http://www.lawandsociety.org/IRC.html#twentyeight
Conference site: http://www.lawandsociety.org/MexicoCity2017/mexicocity2017.html
Submission guidelines: http://www.lawandsociety.org/MexicoCity2017/2017-submit-menu.html
--
The Great Recession of 2007 and the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 have ignited interest in how state power and peoples' will are transmuted, amplified, and undermined by global financial regimes. Few may know of earlier financial crises, such as those in late Ming China (1368–1644) that led to the Single-Whip silver tax reform that sparked the first global integration of currency markets. Financial crises and state responses have shifted state-society boundaries for centuries, giving rise to novel transnational financial orders that discipline and engender new ideas of personhood and political subjectivities. Situated at the nexus of state power and finance from 1600 to the present, our objective is to explore non-Eurocentric genealogies of financialization across Asia.
We conceive of financialization broadly as an apparatus or a set of practices, discourses, and epistemologies that mediate the contested reordering of the world along lines of credit, assets, capital mobility and extraction. Whether it's pilgrimage financing through informal credit associations in the eighteenth century, nineteenth century indentured service practices, or a twentieth century M&A deal, our daily transactions and their attendant logics of financialization are deeply imbricated in systems of value, security, and regulation that give rise to the ubiquitous yet unseen architecture of transborder finance.
Papers by Saeyoung Park
Companion piece: "Me, Myself, and My Hegemony: The Work of Making the Chinese World Order a Reality," HJAS 77(1)
The paper concludes that the inscription of state power on the bodies of its subjects is asymmetric and gendered, and this unevenness is visible even in the expansion of ideal subjecthood.
The expansion of ideal subjecthood and, ultimately, any expansion of subjecthood or citizenship should not be understood simply as altruistic gestures born of some vague nascent liberalism. As disciplinary regimes, states often stand to benefit from selectively endorsing and incorporating peripheral bodies, and this is something that we see not only in the Chosŏn period, but also in the history of the Republic of Korea as well as in the experience of other countries, such as the United States. In the case of Chosŏn Korea, the commemoration of these marginal subjects did indeed signal a shift in who could be loyal and, ultimately, become a more politically whole subject. However, memorialization of peripheral bodies also perversely legitimized the state, silencing its Imjin failures by offering an alternative successful narrative of wartime experience that validated the state’s morality and ability to inspire such loyalty. In fact, promoting the normative accomplishments of marginal populations—such as Buddhist monks—arguably engenders state authority by underscoring its power to inspire even the compliance of peripheral subjects—the subjects whose disenfranchisement had historically been reproduced and reinforced by that very same state. Such exploitation of liminal bodies served as a powerful technology of rule in the arsenal of domination of the Chosŏn period, but these practices should certainly not be seen as the monopolistic domain of premodern states.
Law and Society (LSA) Annual Meeting, Mexico City, June 20-23 2017
Reminder, due date: October 18, 2016
The International Research Collaboration (IRC) " On Financialization and Violence " proceeds from the position that the boundaries between traditional and non-traditional forms of conflict are eroding rapidly, yet research has not caught up with this reality. Situated at the intersection of financialization and violence, we envision the IRC cohering around three themes: (a) weaponization of finance and the future of economic warcraft; (b)intimacy, personhood, and financialization; and (c) democracy and economic human rights. We invite participants to submit papers on the above themes. Original interdisciplinary papers situated in the non-West or the Global South are especially appreciated. There are no chronological limitations.
This IRC broadly envisions financialization as a set of practices, discourses, and epistemologies that mediate the contested reordering of the world along lines of credit, assets, capital mobility and extraction. Single papers and preformed panels that may consider our violent encounters with the architecture of transborder finance, or that explore how logics of financialization are often imbricated in state-sponsored systems of value, security, and regulation are of interest. Please feel free to email the IRC organizers, Laura Elder (lelder@saintmarys.edu) and Saeyoung Park (s.park@hum.leidenuniv.nl) with questions. Submissions through the conference website must note that paper or panel is intended for consideration under this IRC —please include the IRC number (IRC#28) in your proposal.
IRC#28 at the LSA: http://www.lawandsociety.org/IRC.html#twentyeight
Conference site: http://www.lawandsociety.org/MexicoCity2017/mexicocity2017.html
Submission guidelines: http://www.lawandsociety.org/MexicoCity2017/2017-submit-menu.html
--
The Great Recession of 2007 and the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 have ignited interest in how state power and peoples' will are transmuted, amplified, and undermined by global financial regimes. Few may know of earlier financial crises, such as those in late Ming China (1368–1644) that led to the Single-Whip silver tax reform that sparked the first global integration of currency markets. Financial crises and state responses have shifted state-society boundaries for centuries, giving rise to novel transnational financial orders that discipline and engender new ideas of personhood and political subjectivities. Situated at the nexus of state power and finance from 1600 to the present, our objective is to explore non-Eurocentric genealogies of financialization across Asia.
We conceive of financialization broadly as an apparatus or a set of practices, discourses, and epistemologies that mediate the contested reordering of the world along lines of credit, assets, capital mobility and extraction. Whether it's pilgrimage financing through informal credit associations in the eighteenth century, nineteenth century indentured service practices, or a twentieth century M&A deal, our daily transactions and their attendant logics of financialization are deeply imbricated in systems of value, security, and regulation that give rise to the ubiquitous yet unseen architecture of transborder finance.
Companion piece: "Me, Myself, and My Hegemony: The Work of Making the Chinese World Order a Reality," HJAS 77(1)
The paper concludes that the inscription of state power on the bodies of its subjects is asymmetric and gendered, and this unevenness is visible even in the expansion of ideal subjecthood.
The expansion of ideal subjecthood and, ultimately, any expansion of subjecthood or citizenship should not be understood simply as altruistic gestures born of some vague nascent liberalism. As disciplinary regimes, states often stand to benefit from selectively endorsing and incorporating peripheral bodies, and this is something that we see not only in the Chosŏn period, but also in the history of the Republic of Korea as well as in the experience of other countries, such as the United States. In the case of Chosŏn Korea, the commemoration of these marginal subjects did indeed signal a shift in who could be loyal and, ultimately, become a more politically whole subject. However, memorialization of peripheral bodies also perversely legitimized the state, silencing its Imjin failures by offering an alternative successful narrative of wartime experience that validated the state’s morality and ability to inspire such loyalty. In fact, promoting the normative accomplishments of marginal populations—such as Buddhist monks—arguably engenders state authority by underscoring its power to inspire even the compliance of peripheral subjects—the subjects whose disenfranchisement had historically been reproduced and reinforced by that very same state. Such exploitation of liminal bodies served as a powerful technology of rule in the arsenal of domination of the Chosŏn period, but these practices should certainly not be seen as the monopolistic domain of premodern states.