Speaking Engagements

Upcoming academic and public events at which I will be speaking (earliest first):

Event (click for more info)Title of Presentation/TalkDateVenue
Public lecture event at Ann Arbor District LibraryKorean Culture and Spirituality in KPop Demon Hunters3 February 2026Ann Arbor District Library Downtown, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Presentation at 2026 Association for Asian Studies ConferenceLegacies of Japanese Colonialism toward Religion in Contemporary Korean Media: Murayama Chijun, Exhuma, and Save Me13 March 2026Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Past academic and public speaking events (most recent first):

Event (click for more info)Title of Presentation/TalkDateVenue
Presentation at 2025 American Academy of Religion Annual ConferenceThe Subjectivity of Liberation and Oppression in Modern Korean Religion22 November 2025Boston, Massachusetts
Panel speaker for “Religious Freedom in East Asia: Legal Prosecution of Unification Church in Japan and South Korea”No title7 November 2025Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea
Presentation at Religious Mosaic: New Perspectives on Faith and Tradition in Contemporary Korea conferenceParadoxical Legacies of Japanese Colonialism in Contemporary Korean Narratives of Religion: The Shadow of Empire in the Film Exhuma versus Continuing Pseudo-religion Discourse9 May 2025Turin, Italy
Presentation at 2025 Yale Korean Language & Studies Student SymposiumThe Complex Construction of Religion in Korea: Diplomacy, Debate, and the Specter of Empire5 May 2025Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Discussant for Religious Freedom in East Asia eventNo title9 April 2025Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea
Presentation at the 2025 Association for Asian Studies ConferenceThe Inter-imperial Construction of Religion in Korea’s Open Ports Era, 1876–190515 March 2025Columbus, Ohio
Panel chair and organizer at 2024 American Academy of Religion Annual ConferenceReligion and Marginality in Korea24 November 2024San Diego, California
Presentation at 17th Kyujanggak International Symposium on Korean StudiesThe Inter-imperial Formation of “Religion” in Open Ports Korea, 1876–19058 November 2024Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea
Presentation at 2023 American Academy of Religion Annual ConferencePostcolonial Memory and Traces of Seoul’s Shinto Shrines: The Palimpsest of Japanese Colonial Religion in South Korea’s Capital18 November 2023San Antonio, Texas
Talk for Choson History SocietyConstructing Religion in Korea under Japanese and American Rule26 September 2023Virtual, by Choson History Society
Presentation at 2023 Association for Asian Studies AAS-in-Asia ConferenceCold War Reconfigurations of Religion in US-Occupied South Korea26 June 2023Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South Korea
Presentation at 2023 Yale Korean Language & Studies Student SymposiumPostcolonial Memory and Traces of Seoul’s Shinto Shrines28 April 2023Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Roundtable participation at 2023 Association for Asian Studies Annual ConferenceReligion, Barriers, and Possibilities18 February 2023Virtual
Presentation at 2022 Susman Graduate History ConferenceSetting the Boundaries of Religious Freedom and National Interest in North Korea1 April 2022Virtual, by Rutgers University
Presentation at USC Korean Studies Institute Graduate SymposiumThe Limits of Religious Freedom in North Korea: How the North Understands Religion10 February 2022Virtual, by University of Southern California
Presentation at 2022 Association for Asian Studies Annual ConferenceAnti-Imperialism and Anti-Americanism in the North Korean Understanding of Religion25 March 2022Hawai’i Convention Center, Honolulu, Hawai’i
Presentation at 2021 Yale Korean Language & Studies SymposiumNorth Korean Historiography of Religion, through North Korean Textbooks in the Yale East Asia Library10 December 2021Virtual, by Yale University
Presentation at 2021 New England Association for Asian Studies Regional ConferenceRational Restriction on Religion? How North Korea Conceives of Religious Freedom6 December 2021Virtual, by Harvard University
Presentation at Boston University Graduate Program in Religion Student Association ConferenceThe Boundaries of Religious Freedom in North Korea: Excluding Religion to Protect the Revolutionary State26 September 2021Virtual, by Boston University
Lecture on North Korea at Bristol Public LibraryThe “Other” Korea14 September 2021Bristol Public Library, Bristol, Connecticut
Presentation at 8th Annual Korea University Graduate Student ConferenceA Marginal Religion and COVID-19 in South Korea: Shincheonji, Public Discourse, and the Shaping of ReligionMay 2021Korea University, Seoul, South Korea
Remarks in webinar on “Chairman Lee, Shincheonji, and COVID-19: The Verdict”No titleFebruary 2021Virtual, by CESNUR
Presentation at Contesting Memorial Spaces in the Asia-Pacific ConferenceThe Memory and Legacy of Shinto Shrine Sites in Seoul: The Geography of Colonial Religious TopoiNovember 2020Virtual, by Kyushu University
Presentation at 2020 New England Association for Asian Studies Regional ConferenceMarginal Religion and COVID-19 in Korea: Shincheonji, Public Discourse, and the Shaping of Categorical LanguageOctober 2020Virtual, by University of Vermont
Presentation at 2020 Harvard East Asia Society ConferenceCity Boundaries and the Traces of the Kami: Borders, Urban Spaces, and the Legacy and Memory of Shinto Shrines in SeoulFebruary 2020Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Featured speaker at ThiNK at Yale eventCovering North Korea: Analysis, Journalism, ScholarshipDecember 2019Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Presentation at Implicit Religion USA conferenceA ‘Laissez Faire Policy?’ Defining and Categorizing Religion in Occupied South KoreaJune 2019Monmouth University, West Long Branch, New Jersey
Presentation at 2019 International Graduate Conference on the Cold War‘Nothing Less Than a Religious War’: The Genesis of the Religious Cold War in KoreaMay 2019George Washington University, Washington, DC
Presentation at University of Pennsylvania EALC Graduate Conference 2019Managing Post-Colonial Religious Rights: Religious Freedom and Religions Policy of the U.S. Military Occupation of South Korea, 1945-1948April 2019University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Presentation at Columbia University 28th Annual Graduate Student Conference on East AsiaBenevolent Neutrality: Religious Freedom and Religions Policy of the U.S. Military Occupation of South Korea, 1945-1948February 2019Columbia University, New York, New York
Presentation at 47th Annual Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies ConferenceFostering Freedom and Faith: Religious Liberty and Christianization in the U.S. Occupation of South Korea, 1945-1948November 2018Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania
Presentation at 6th International Conference of NextGen Korean Studies ScholarsPolitics, Public, and Shamans: Marginalization of Shamanism in Korea, Past and PresentMay 2018University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Presentation at 46th Annual Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies ConferenceReligious and National Identity in Korea, 1860-1945October 2017Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Presentation at James Joo-Jin Kim Program in Korean Studies Undergraduate Fellow Research SymposiumRespected but Marginalized: The Paradoxical Treatment of Shamanism in South KoreaMay 2017University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Presentation at University of Pennsylvania EALC Graduate Conference 2017The Soviet-based Korean Communist Movement beyond Kim Il SungApril 2017University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Presentation at Columbia University 26th Annual Graduate Student Conference on East AsiaThe Politics of Shintō in Colonial Korea: Religion on the Margins of Japan’s EmpireFebruary 2017Columbia University, New York, New York
Featured speaker at “Basketball Diplomacy and the North Korean Mind: Film and Discussion”North Korea: What Do We Know?November 2016World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Panel speaker in “Missiles, Nukes, Markets, Madman?: North Korea in 2016” North Korea RoundtableA More Credible Deterrent?: Nuclear and Missile Developments in North Korea, 2016October 2016University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Presentation at “What Isn’t Shinto?” Shinto Symposium 2016Shintō in Colonial Korea: A Broadening Narrative of Imperial Era ShintōSeptember 2016University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania