Transnational and Comparative Study

This focus on transnational and comparative study is helping us make Transnational Korean Studies more relevant and appealing to the rest of campus, driving demand beyond that typically motivated by traditional area studies.

In transnationalizing Korean studies, we situate this dynamic and innovative field of study in relation to -- indeed at the center of -- larger intellectual units, such as American Studies, political economy, postcolonial studies, modernization studies, globalization studies, critical race studies, and critical gender studies/queer studies. Because our program takes a distinct intellectual approach from that of other universities, it is enabling us to re-define Transnational Korean Studies to make the study of Korea relevant to the study of regional and global histories and cultures. To this end, we are building on the strengths of various programs and world-class faculty at UC San Diego from:

• American Studies (Professors Shelley Streeby and Daniel Widener),
• Ethnic Studies and Comparative Race Studies (Professor Yen Le Espiritu)
• Migration and Globalization Studies (Professor John Skrentny)
• Transnational Chinese and Japanese Studies (Professors Yingjin Zhang, Ping-Hui Liao, Larissa (Ari) Heinrich, Stefan Tanaka, Christena Turner, and Joseph D. Hankins)