Abstract:
On April 16, 2014, the Sewol ferry capsized off the southwestern coast of South Korea, killing 304 people, including 250 students. The helplessness that many felt at the sinking was sharpened by the ways the Korean government mishandled the disaster, which has become the most galvanizing event in contemporary South Korean history. Throughout this rollercoaster of national trauma, public outrage, hope for change, and broken promises, an activist movement has taken shape among artists working through performance to process the disaster, commemorate its victims, and advocate for public change. By examining a multimedia collection of performative works commemorating the Sewol, this talk reveals how activists and artists mobilizing performative strategies have labored to transform the meaning of the Sewol from an unresolved national trauma into a catalyst for creating a safer, fairer, and more caring society.
Bio:
Areum Jeong is an interdisciplinary scholar and educator of Korean and Korean diasporic cinema, literature, popular culture, theatre and performance. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Korean Studies at Arizona State University. She is the author of Beyond the Sewol: Activist Theatre and Performance in South Korea and Diaspora (University of Hawaii Press, September 2025) and K-Pop Fandom: Performing Deokhu from the 1990s to Today (University of Michigan Press, February 2026).
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