Eugene Kwon

Eugene Kwon is a doctoral candidate in the Combined Program in Film and Media Studies and East Asian Languages and Literatures. His field of research and teaching encompasses cinema and media cultures of East Asia (with focus on South Korea and Japan), digital culture, game studies, science and technology discourse (cybernetics), and contemporary science fiction literature. 

 

His current research project, “Distance, Play, and Future: Media History and Theory of South Korea and Japan, 1970-1980s,” examines how discourses and artistic practices (video/film, digital games, science fiction literature) centering on media concept in both regions reshaped people’s relationship to technology and constituted the beginnings of digital cultures. Broadly defining media as forms of practice and technologies that reshape notions of distance, play, and future, the project argues that various media during this liminal period, coming after the subversive postwar period and before the advent of neoliberalism, enabled a variety of actors in both regions—artists, student groups, intellectuals, and political actors—to creatively subvert and expand the potential of technology. By taking a comparative perspective, this project shows that the meaning and usage of media was constantly renegotiated and challenged during this period.      

 

He has an upcoming article on early history of digital games in South Korea (1960-1970s) for Korean Social Science Journal and a translation of Hasumi Shigehiko’s film criticism for Screen. Taking public-facing work seriously, he has regularly contributed essays and criticism for various publications, including a special coverage on Korean cinema for Sight and Sound and a feature interview of Hamaguchi Ryusuke for Cineaste. Most recently, he served as a jury member for PIA Film Festival (PFF), a major film festival where many prominent Japanese filmmakers (Lee Sang-il, Kurosawa Kiyoshi) made their début.

 

At Yale, he has designed and taught courses on East Asian film history and Korean popular culture (hallyu) from a comparative perspective. On campus, he is the initiator of a working group on East Asian Media History and Theory funded by the Whitney Humanities Center. Before coming to Yale, he worked as an interpreting officer (Lieutenant Junior Grade) for the Republic of Korean Navy, serving as a liaison between South Korean, American, and Japanese admirals and officers.   

 

His working languages are Korean, Japanese, French (advanced), and Chinese (beginner).