Author Archives: jhchae

January 26: Monica Kim

East Asia: Transregional Histories Workshop presents:

Empire’s Babel: Making the Decolonized Subject in the U.S. Military Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War
by

Monica Kim (Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, UChicago)
Thursday, January 26, 2012
JHF (SS224), 4-6 pm

Paper Abstract:

The U.S. military interrogation room came into the purview of the U.S. mainstream public by way of the torture debate, but both critics and supporters of coercive interrogation techniques have surprisingly found common ground in one assumption regarding the interrogation room itself: that the interrogation room can be a rational space for the production of information. This article argues that the U.S. military interrogation room has historically played a critical role in the project of universalizing the vision of a U.S. liberal geopolitical order not through the production of information, but rather through the production of subjects.  Through an examination of the histories of the interrogators, the interrogated POWs, and the policies surrounding interrogation during the Korean War, this article demonstrates that the notion that the U.S. military interrogation room can be an objective space for information-gathering is actually a construct molded by mid-twentieth ideas about racial capacities, assimilation, and decolonization.

Winter 2012 Schedule

East Asia: Transregional Histories Workshop’s winter schedule is as follows:

 

January 26: Monica Kim (Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, U Chicago)

“Empire’s Babel: Making the Decolonized Subject in the U.S. Military Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War.”

 

February 9: Stacie Hanneman (PhD Candidate, History, U Chicago)

“Event or Totality? Transit Passes and Questions of Governance in Treaty Port China”

 

February 23: Helen Findley (PhD Candidate, EALC, U Chicago)

“Practical Preaching: Shaku Soen and the Creation of a Buddhist Citizenry”

 

March 8: Noriko Yamaguchi (PhD Candidate, History, U Chicago)

“Reforming” Rural Everyday Life: Domestic Reforms in 1950s Japan.”

 

We will meet at 4 pm in JHF Room (SS224). If you have any questions, please contact Jun-hyung Chae (jhchae@uchicago.edu).

 

Fall Schedule 2011

Fall 2011 Schedule

Location: John Hope Franklin Room (SS224), Thursday 4-6 PM, except the discussion with Professor Koaysu Nobukuni on Oct. 5 (Wednesday, SS224)

 

Oct. 5: Nobukuni Koyasu (Professor Emeritus, Osaka University)

“Japanese Intellectuals and China: A Discussion”

 

Oct. 20: Matthew Johnson (Assistant Professor, History, Grinnell College)

“Mass Culture in Maoist China: Archival Perspective and Methodological Challenges.”

 

Oct. 27: Dong-choon Kim (Professor, Sungkonghoe University, South Korea)

“Korea’s Movement to settle the Past Issues and Peace in East Asia”

 

Nov. 3: Fei-hsien Wang (PhD candidate, History, University of Chicago)

“Between Property and Privilege: Did Copyright Exist in China before the Copyright Law of 1910?”

 

Nov. 17: Limin Teh (PhD candidate, History, University of Chicago)

“Politics and Society in a Japanese Colonial Mining Town.”