Mina Kyounghye Kwon, Ph.D.
Area(s) of Expertise: World Literature, Postcolonial Studies, Asian/Asian American Studies, Gender Studies, Performance Studies
Overview
Dr. Mina Kyounghye Kwon is a professor of world and comparative literature at the University of North Georgia. She received her master’s and doctoral degrees in English (and her certificate in theatre and performance) from the Ohio State University, specializing in postcolonial drama and comparative literature. Her teaching and research areas include world literature and film, Asian/Asian American studies, and performance studies. Her current scholarship focuses on the English translation of traditional Korean puppet plays and the contemporary representations of traditional Korean puppet theatre.
She is co-editor of peer-reviewed open-access world literature anthologies funded by the University System of Georgia: Compact Anthology of World Literature I (Parts 1, 2, 3), World Literature I: Beginnings to 1650, and Compact Anthology of World Literature II (Parts 4, 5, 6). She has published articles and essays in the areas of world literature, Korean theatre, and Asian American drama in Theatre After Empire, Puppetry International, Women and Puppetry, Asian Theatre Journal, The Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Pinter Et Cetera, and Text & Presentation. Her translation was published in Delos: A Journal of Translation and World Literature. She is a recipient of the Presidential Semester Award, Presidential Summer Award, Presidential Innovation Award, and Teaching Excellence Award at 果冻传媒, as well as the Targeted Research Area Grants Award from ASTR (American Society for Theatre Research) and the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award.
Courses Taught
- ENGL 4645 (Asian American Literature)
- ENGL 4820/ENGL 6820 (Asian Drama and Performance)
- ENGL 4810/ ENGL 6810 (East Asian Film and Literature)
- ENGL 4310 (Asian Literature in Translation)
- ENGL 3340/ENGL 6340 (Women Writers in World Literature)
- ENGL 3350/ENGL 6350 (Postcolonial World Literature)
- ENGL 3310/ENGL 6310 (Immigrant Literature)
- ENGL 2115 (Gender and Literature), a core course for the Gender Studies Minor
- ENGL 2112 (World Literature II)
- ENGL 2111 (World Literature I)
- ENGL 2132 (American Literature II)
- ENGL 1102 (Composition II)
- ENGL 1101 (Composition I)
Education
- Ph.D., English (with a Certificate in Theatre & Performance), The Ohio State University
- M.A., English, The Ohio State University
- B.A., English, Kangwon National University, South Korea, summa cum laude
Publications
Books
Kwon, Kyounghye. Editor (with Anita Turlington [Editor-in-Chief], Karen Dodson, Laura Getty, Laura Ng, and Matthew Horton), Compact Anthology of World Literature (Parts 4, 5, 6). University of North Georgia, University System of Georgia, 2018. Peer Reviewed.
Kwon, Kyounghye. Co-editor (with Laura Getty [Editor-in-Chief], Rhonda Kelley, and Douglass Thomson), World Literature I: Beginnings to 1650 (Parts I, II, III). University of North Georgia Press, University System of Georgia, 2016. Peer Reviewed.
Kwon, Kyounghye. Co-editor (with Editor-in-Chief Laura Getty), Compact Anthology of World Literature (Parts 1, 2, 3). University of North Georgia Press, University System of Georgia, 2015. Peer Reviewed.
Articles
Kwon, Mina Kyounghye. “Translating is Traveling is Transforming: Han Kang’s Human Acts as World Literature.” Interdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching Korea in the Undergraduate Curriculum. SUNY P, 2023. Forthcoming.
Kwon, Mina Kyounghye. “Absurdist Theatre Goes Postcolonial: Trans-Contextuality, Absurd Jokes, and Evocation in (Post)colonial Plays.” Theatre After Empire, edited by Megan E. Geigner and Harvey Young, Routledge, 2021, pp. 49-67. Peer-reviewed.
Kwon, Mina Kyounghye. “‘Bak Cheomji’s Sightseeing’ from Kkokdugaksi Noreum, a Korean. Traditional Puppet Play.” Performance and Translation, special issue of Delos: A Journal of Translation and World Literature, Vol. 35, no. 1, Spring 2020, pp. 1-19. Translation & article.(Translation sample readings are available at https://youtu.be/HA3fyu9cw54 and at https://youtu.be/bIv8MFazNqE )
Kwon, Mina Kyounghye. “The Syncretic Spectrum between Tradition and Post-Tradition: Revitalising Traditional Korean Puppetry with Contemporary Satire.” Asian Puppet Theatres: Traditions, Transitions, Renditions, special issue of The Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia (JOSA), Vol. 51 (2019), 2020, pp.103-128. Peer Reviewed.
Kwon, Kyounghye. “Korean Traditional Puppetry and Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH).” Puppetry International, Spring/Summer Issue, no. 45, 2019, pp. 14-17. Peer Reviewed.
Kwon, Kyounghye. “Women, Marriage, and Femininities: “Kkokdu Gaksi Geori” (or the “Love Triangle” Scene) in the Korean Traditional Puppet Play.” Women and Puppetry: Critical and Historical Investigations, edited by Alissa Mello, Claudia Orenstein, and Cariad Astles, Routledge, 2019, pp. 50-65. Peer Reviewed.
Kwon, Kyounghye. “The Hilarity of Unhappiness in Oh Tae-suk’s Tempest: Cross-Cultural Access and Precolonial/Indigenous Aesthetics.” Asian Theatre Journal, 34.1, Spring 2017, pp. 75-96. Peer Reviewed.
Kwon, Kyounghye. “Shifting South Korean Theatre: Jo-Yeol Park’s A Dialogue Between Two Long-necked People and Taesuk Oh’s Chunpung’s Wife.” The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, XXIII.2, Spring 2009, pp. 47-65. Peer Reviewed.
Kwon, Kyounghye. “Absurd Jokers: Edward Albee, Harold Pinter, and Samuel Beckett.” Pinter Et Cetera, edited by Craig N. Owens, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009, pp. 43-63. Editor Reviewed.
Kwon, Kyounghye. “Kimchi and Corn: Asian American Liminality in Sung Rno’s Cleveland Raining.” Text & Presentation, 2005, edited by Stratos E. Constantinidis, McFarland, 2006, pp. 132-144. Peer Reviewed.
Reviews
Kwon, Kyounghye. Review of DMZ Crossing: Performing Emotional Citizenship Along the Korean Border by Suk-Young Kim. Theatre Survey. (January 2016): 158-160.
Kwon, Kyounghye. Review of The Poetics of Difference and Displacement: Twentieth-Century Chinese-Western Intercultural Theatre by Min Tian. Theatre Journal. (December 2011): 663-664.
Work Experience
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre, Film, and Television, UCLA, Spring 2011.
Lecturer, Department of English, The Ohio State University, 2010-2011.