Hwansoo Kim, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Asian & Middle Eastern Studies

Please note: Hwansoo has left the "Asian & Middle Eastern Studies" group at Duke University; some info here might not be up to date.

Professor Kim’s primary research concerns Korean Buddhism in the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries in the context of colonialism, imperialism, and modernity. His broader scholarship includes East Asian religions, Buddhist modernities, transnational Buddhism, monasticism, clerical marriage, rituals, and ethics.

Office Location:	118 Gray Bldg, Durham, NC 27708
Email Address:

Office Hours:: On leave

Education:

Ph.D.	Harvard University	2007
MTS	Harvard Divinity School	2002
BS	Dongguk University	1996

Specialties:: Korean

Keywords:: Colonialism • Zen Buddhism

Current Ph.D. Students
Jeffrey Nicholaisen
Mani Rao
Seth Ligo
Yeongjin Cho
Uri Kaplan
Jeff Schroeder
Matthew Mitchell

Recent Publications

Kim, H, Seeking the colonizer’s favours for a buddhist vision: The korean buddhist nationalist paek yongsŏng’s (1864-1940) imje sŏn movement, in Buddhist Modernities: Re-Inventing Tradition in the Globalizing Modern World (January, 2017), pp. 66-88, ISBN 9781134884759 [doi]
Kim, H, Buddhism during the Chosŏn Dynasty (1392–1910): A Collective Trauma?, vol. 22 no. 1 (2017), pp. 101-142 [doi] [abs]
Nakanishi Naoki, Colonial Korea and Japanese Buddhism (Chōsen Shokuminichi to Nihon Bukkyō), Japanese Religions Journal (May, 2015)
H.I. Kim, 'The Mystery of the Century’: Lay Buddhist Monk Villages (Chaegasŭngch’on) Near Korea’s Northernmost Border, 1600s–1960s, Seoul Journal of Korean Studies, vol. 26 no. 2 (April, 2014), pp. 269-305 [abs]
H.I. Kim, Social Stigmas of Buddhist Monastics and the Lack of Lay Buddhist Leadership in Colonial Korea (1910–1945), Korea Journal, vol. 26 no. 2 (February, 2014), pp. 269-305 [abs]

HWANSOO ILMEE KIM (2009) received his Ph.D. in the colonial history of Korean and Japanese Buddhism from Harvard University in 2007. He has a BA in the history of East Asian Buddhism and Yogacara philosophy from Dongguk University in Seoul, Korea (1996) and received his master’s in Buddhism and the sociology and theory of religion at Harvard Divinity School (2002). Before joining Duke, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard's Reischauer Institute (2007) and assistant professor at the University of Arizona (2008). Professor Kim’s primary research concerns Korean Buddhism in the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries in the context of colonialism, imperialism, and modernity. His broader scholarship includes East Asian religions, the modernization of Buddhism, monasticism, clerical marriage, rituals, and ethics. Recent articles, among others, are "The Adventures of a Japanese Monk in Colonial Korea: Sōma Shōei’s Zen Training with Korean Masters" (2008); “'The Future of Korean Buddhism Lies in My Hands': Takeda Hanshi as a Sōtō Missionary" (2010); “A Buddhist Colonialism?: A New Perspective on the Korean Wŏnjong and Japanese Sōtōshū’s 1910 Attempted Alliance” (2010). He recently completed his book titled Strategic Alliances: the Dynamic Relationship between Korean and Japanese Buddhism, 1877–1912 (forthcoming Harvard Asia Center 2011). The book brings to light that Korean monks, aware of the political, economic, and social stature of Japanese Buddhist missionaries, strategically allied themselves with Japanese sects to further their personal and institutional aims. This revision also highlight how Christianity, as a significant other, informed Korean and Japanese Buddhists’ approach to institutional structures, foreign missionary efforts, and modernity.