Hyun Suk Park

Assistant Professor, Department of Asian Languages & Cultures, UCLA

My primary field is Korean literature and culture from the mid-seventeenth through the nineteenth century, encompassing texts in Korean and in classical Chinese. My research interests include intersections of literature and performance of music and dance, the history of gender and sexuality, the comparative history of slavery, ritual studies, travel writings, and cultural exchanges in East Asia. I am currently working on my first book manuscript based upon my dissertation, “The Government Courtesan: Status, Gender, and Performance in Late Chosŏn Korea,” which examines the music and dance performance in state ritual and ceremony by government courtesans, female entertainers of hereditary base status. Before joining the department at UCLA, I taught Korean literature at the University of California, Berkeley, and Seoul National University.