The Korean Studies Research Network (KoRN), an International Programs affinity group, will present a virtual lecture by guest speaker Dr. Minwoo Jung on flexible masculinities in Asia.
Flexible masculinities refer to the constant negotiation and embodiment of diverse forms of masculinity in distinct cultural, social, and political contexts. This new concept helps us identify gendered practices for navigating flexible capital accumulation and flexible citizenship in an increasingly transnational world shaped by changes in the global capital market, shifting geopolitical dynamics, and the emergence of a new global order. Drawing on his ethnographic research in global queer Asia, with a particular emphasis on his own changing mobility, trajectory, and positionality as a transnational ethnographer, Dr. Jung will analyze multiple national contexts—particularly Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea— in which flexible masculinities are performed and challenged.
Dr. Minwoo Jung is an assistant professor of sociology and women’s studies and gender studies at Loyola University Chicago. Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork conducted across East and Southeast Asia, he is working on a book project that presents a comparative ethnography of the intimate entanglements of queer struggles and geopolitics. His work has been published in The British Journal of Sociology, The Sociological Review, Social Movement Studies, and Positions: asia critique.
The Korean Studies Research Network aims to bring together scholars whose research focuses on Korea-related topics and to provide mentoring to the younger generation of scholars. It serves as a platform to facilitate collaborative and interdisciplinary research among scholars and graduate students at the University of Iowa and institutions of higher education in the Midwest through speaker series.