Virtual Conference on Comfort Women

Virtual Conference--A New Outlook to the Atrocities: Comfort Women and What Remains

May 20 and 21, 2022

About the Conference

The theme of our conference invited much needed interdisciplinary conversations on the atrocities that occurred against comfort women, with the broad aim to enrich our understanding of victimhood/victim identity, perpetrators-justice relations, the past, present, and future of memory, and what remains of the challenge in refuting historic mischaracterizations about the case. Our panel of speakers reflected diverse disciplinary perspectives on comfort women from scholars in sociology, memory studies, international relations/global affairs, history, literary studies, music, and gender and women’s studies.

Conference agenda

Friday, May 20, 2022
6:30-10 p.m. EST (Eastern Standard Time); 7:30-11 a.m. (Korea Time)
Session 1 -- Comfort Women Memory and Voices: the Past, Present, and Beyond

Opening Remarks

Ivan Sascha Sheehan
Associate Professor and Director, School of Public and International Affairs
The University of Baltimore

Chair and Discussant

Nienke Grossman
Professor of Law and Co-Director, Center for International and Comparative Law
The University of Baltimore School of Law

“The Power of Korean 'Comfort Women’s' Testimonies”

Pyong Gap Min
Distinguished Professor, Department of Sociology
Queens College, City University of New York

“New Genres, New Audiences: Retelling the Story of Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery”

Margaret Stetz
Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women’s Studies and Professor of Humanities
University of Delaware

"The Perils of Apology"

Jungah Kim
Associate Professor of English
BMCC, City University of New York

“Can the State Comfort Japanese Military Sexual Slavery?: Nort Korea's Perception and Discourse on the Issue."

Hyesuk Kang
Professor
Seoul National University's Institute of Social Sciences

“Keeping the memory of comfort women alive: How social media can be used to preserve the memory of comfort women and educate future generations”

Lauren Seward, M.A. '21
Relationship Manager, U.S. Department of Defense

Saturday, May 21, 2022
8-11:30 a.m. EST (Eastern Standard Time); 9 p.m.-12:30 a.m. (Korea Time)
Session 2 -- Centering the Victim and What Remains

Chair and Discussant

Mikyoung Kim
Pukyung National University

“Reconfiguring Activist-Survivors of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery, Remapping Encounters between Colonial Women”

Na-Young Lee
Professor, Department of Sociology
Chung-Ang University

"Song, Speech, and the Work of Listening to 'Comfort Women' Survivors"

Joshua Pilzer
Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology, Faculty of Music
Affiliate Faculty, Center for the Study of Korea
University of Toronto

"Kut as Political Disobedience, Healing, and Resilience"

Merose Hwang
Associate Professor, Department of History
Hiram College

“Tracing the Footsteps of Victimized Korean Women in Different Time Periods”

Jinah Kwon
Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Peace and Unification
Soongsil University

Lecturer
Korea University

Myeonghee Kim
Ph.D. candidate
Yonsei University & Soongsil Institute for Peace and Unification

“What about the children? The children’s side of the argument on comfort women”

Ñusta Carranza Ko
Assistant Professor, School of Public and International Affairs
The University of Baltimore

Closing Remarks

Ivan Sascha Sheehan
Associate Professor and Director, School of Public and International Affairs
The University of Baltimore

College of Public Affairs

Virtual Conference--A New Outlook to the Atrocities: Comfort Women and What Remains

May 20 and 21, 2022

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