KRC Visiting Scholars

Dr. Sojeong Park is a Cultural Studies scholar whose interests span diverse aspects of popular culture and digital culture, with a focus on the way identity and intimacy are constructed and mediated by media. She earned her Ph.D. in Communication from Seoul National University.

The book Mibaek: The Cultural Politics of Skin Color, which is based on her doctoral dissertation, was published in 2022. She also has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals, including International Journal of Communication, Celebrity Studies, The Journal of Popular Culture, and Korea Journal. 

She currently serves as a Research Fellow at the Center for Hallyu Studies, Seoul National University Asia Center. Her ongoing project, “Ethno-mediascapes and ethnic sensitivity of South Korean Society” explores the intricate dynamics of ethnicity within Korean media. More information about her research can be found at sojeongpark.com.

I am a scholar of transnational Cultural Studies researching on contemporary popular culture flows between East and Southeast Asia, including  the regional projection and reception of Hallyu.  Amongst my recent publications include that of the reception of K-pop in Southeast Asia in my co-edited book “Women We Love: Femininities and the Korean Wave”. My current projects in this field covers that of the transnational screen cultural representations in film locations of both Singapore and Korean productions.   I am currently an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Metropolitan University.  

During my time in the KRC, I would like to share my ideas of the Korean Wave from a rights based cultural security approach, one that emphasizes more on rights of expressions and access to cultural resources, information and related social communities at both the macro global and micro individual levels.  The post-war Asia-Pacific region has benefitted significantly from global and regional popular cultural circulations. However, these flows are often threatened by both local restrictive and oppressive local censorship regimes as well as broader geopolitical tensions associated with the recent trends of de-globalisation and de-coupling.  Through the case study of Hallyu, I would like to explore the current threats and prospective possibilities of a rights based cultural security approach in the Asia-Pacific region.

Dr Eldin Milak is the 2023 Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow for research in Australia and New Zealand and a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry at Curtin University. He completed his PhD in sociolinguistics at Sungkyunkwan University as a Global Korea Scholar (GKS). At Sungkyunkwan, Eldin also served as lead researcher in the Brain Korea 21+ (BK21) research group.  

His work explores the intersection of language and society in contemporary South Korea, with a particular focus on script and writing practices and policies in the country, as well as other sociolinguistic issues, including naming and addressing, public spaces and landscapes, and pop culture. As a Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Eldin is currently reworking his doctoral dissertation into a monograph tentatively titled "Trans-scripting Korea: Script practices and policies in semiotic landscapes". 

Eldin is a Fulbright Alumnus (Montclair State University, NJ), and the 2022 International Research Foundation for English Language Education (TIRF) Doctoral Dissertation Grant (DDG) recipient. 

Born in Korea and raised in Paraguay, Dr Hea-Jin Park is a historian whose work focuses on human migration from and to Korea. After completing her medical degree at the Universidad Nacional de Asunción, she received her doctoral degree from the Australian National University for her thesis on the history of South Korean agricultural migration to South America and was Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand, 2017-2018). 

Her current research explores the history of the Australian Presbyterian missionaries to Korea and their contributions to Korean society, especially in the fields of medicine and education. Linked to this project, she is the content creator behind @australia_in_korea Instagram account, a page dedicated exclusively to Australian Presbyterian missionaries who served in Korea since 1889. Hea-Jin’s latest project - “The tale of three Australian Granny Samsin (Australia-Korea Foundation, 2019-2020) - can be found here.   

Hae-Jin is involved in the KRC's new project on Australia-Korea rural development.