Madeleine Han’s dissertation examines the contemporary cultural, spatial, and memorial politics surrounding former kijich’ons (military camptowns) in South Korea within the time of ceasefire. Examining efforts by cultural workers, activists, and state actors to redevelop and repurpose former US military bases in Korea, her project explores how different actors mobilize culture and art as vehicles for narrating the significance of kijich’ons, remapping the meanings of war and peace, sovereignty and nation, and past, present, and future in the process.

Seunghwa Madeleine Han is a PhD candidate in the Yale University American Studies Program working on a dissertation about the cultural and memorial politics of militarized space in South Korea. Their writing has been published in The Nation and MENT Magazine. Their research has received support from the Korea Foundation, International Center for Korean Studies (housed within the Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies at Seoul National University), and Yale MacMillan Center and the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration.