The Institute for Korean Studies presents:
"Interrogating the Nation-State in Contemporary South Korean Theatre"
Kee-Yoon Nahm
Illinois State University
Abstract: This lecture begins with an overview of the political turn in South Korean theatre since 2014. In the wake of multiple political crises, theatre artists have interrogated the functions and responsibilities of the bureaucratic nation-state, still rooted in the late-twentieth-century ideology of ethno-nationalism. After the historical overview, the lecture then examines two plays by award-winning playwright Yun Mi Hyun as case studies. The Wooden Boat (2019) focuses on the experiences of an elderly man displaced from his home that is now in North Korean territory, while Texas Aunt (2017) depicts a rural South Korean community where the exploitation and abuse of migrant women run rampant. These plays reflect the ways in which contemporary Korean theatre interrogates and reimagines the nation-state through domestic political action and a heightened awareness of South Korea’s positionality in twenty-first century geopolitics.
Kee-Yoon Nahm, D.F.A. is Visiting Associate Professor at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University and Associate Professor of Theatre Studies at Illinois State University. He has published articles in Theater, Performance Research, Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context, and The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, as well as the anthologies Realisms in East Asian Performance and Towards a Just Pedagogy of Performance, among other academic journals and essay collections. He is on the editorial board of Asian Theatre Journal, where he reviews submissions on Korean theatre and performance. Kee-Yoon also works as a production dramaturg and theatre translator, with credits at Yale Repertory Theatre, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, TheatreWorks Colorado Springs, UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, the National Theatre Company of Korea, the National Dance Company of Korea, the National Gugak Center, and the Seoul Performing Arts Festival, among others.
Free and Open to the Public
If you require an accommodation, such as live captioning, to participate in this event, please contact EASC at easc@osu.edu. Requests made at least two weeks in advance of the event will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.
This event is supported by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant to The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center.
