Talk: Tuesday, April 29, 2025 3:30-5:00pm | HUM 1 RM 202

This talk explores the linkages between the Dirty War in Argentina and the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in South Korea that have been obfuscated and erased by disciplinary borders. Dr. Kim examines the connections and intimacies between the overlapping histories of these two cities demonstrating the ways in which Global South countries were violently conscripted into dirty wars against communism. Through an analysis of Im Heung-soon's documentary Good Light, Good Air (2021), she reveals how missing bodies and transformed urban spaces haunt Gwangju and Buenos Aires, proposing that Korean-Latin American connections offer possibilities for imagining decolonial futures.

Dr. Kim's interdisciplinary research examines intersections of settler militarism, imperialism, and racial capitalism across East Asia, Latin America, and Asian American diasporas. Her current book project, Cacophonous Intimacies, centers Asian diasporas in Latin America while revealing connections between multiple imperialisms and postcolonial nation-building. She serves on editorial boards for numerous academic book series and is a core member of the Ending the Korean War Teaching Collective.