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Moderator: Ungsan Kim, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan.

What does it mean to speculate on the margins or periphery of Korean cinema when global respect for Korean cinema has never been higher? Margins are determined and demarcated by the distance from the center. Hence, an account of margins is commonly given relative to the center. But what if we position the margin as a point of critical inquiry with which we problematize either the distance from or proximity to the center? In this roundtable, three scholars of Korean cinema reflect on the pervasive optimism about popular mainstream cinema and discuss the potential and significance of “margins” of Korean cinema. Ranging from marginalized modes of production, including women’s cinema, cinema of the ethnic others, and queer cinema, to disciplinarily overlooked subjects, including independent filmmaking and linguistic dimension of cinema, the roundtable discussants will share their reflections on the marginal voices and practices in Korean cinema.

Kelly Jeong is associate professor of Korean studies and comparative literature at the University of California, Riverside. Her research interests include modern and contemporary Korean literature, culture, and cinema. She published a book entitled “Modernity Arrives Again: Crisis of Gender, Masculinity, Nationhood in Modern Korean Literature and Cinema,” with the Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. She has also published articles in The Journal of Korean Studies, Hanguk Munhak Yongu (Study of Korean Literature), and ACTA Koreana. Professor Jeong’s courses include modern Korean literature, Korean Culture and Society, Introduction to Korean Film, and Themes in Modern and Contemporary Korean Culture.

Jinsoo An is associate professor at the Dept. of East Asian Languages and Cultures of the University of California, Berkeley. An completed a doctoral degree at critical studies program of Dept. of Film and TV of UCLA and subsequently taught at Hongik University in Korea before joining the faculty at UC Berkeley in 2012. His 2018 book, "Parameters of Disavowal" reassess South Korea's cinematic rendition of the colonial past as a particular type of knowledge production integral to the historic-cultural logic of the Cold War system. His current project focuses on the South Korea cinema of the 1970s.

Ungsan Kim is assistant professor of Asian cinema in the Dept. of Asian Languages and Cultures and the Dept. of Film, Television, and Media at the University of Michigan. His current monograph project historicizes the emergence of critical queer cinema across Asia in the 1990s. His most recent publications include "The Poet and the Theater: Perverse Reading and Queer Poetry" in Routledge Companion to Korean Literature (2022) and "Stateless Things (2011): Queer Cinema and the Critique of the Heteronormative Nation-State" in Rediscovering Korean Cinema (2019).

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