ANNOUNCEMENTS
2025 Dongsoon Im and Mija Im Conference of Korea Christianity
Call for Papers: UCLA 2025 Im Conference
“Regionalism, Colonialism, Communism, and Christianity in Korea”
The UCLA Center for Korean Studies is pleased to announce that the 2025 Im Conference of Korean Christianity will be held at 10383 Bunche Hall on Friday, November 7, 2025
The conference seeks to provide scholars engaged in Korea-related studies and world Christianity with a platform to present their research on Korean Christianity. The selecting committee will consider papers addressing the following topics and their related issues: (1) Critical issues related to Christianity in northern and northwestern Korea from 1890 to 1945; (2) The interplay between Protestantism and colonial modernity, the impact of colonialism on Christian education, and the dynamics of colonial medical hegemony alongside Christian medical initiatives; (3) The conflicts between Christianity and Communism in Korea from 1945 to 1987, including the role of Christianity during the American military rule from 1945 to 1948, the relationship between Christianity and the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, and the interactions between Christians and the Syngman Rhee government from 1948 to 1960; Christian anti-Communism in the 1970s and 1980s; (4) The global connections of Korean Christianity from 1985 to 2025; and (5) Generational and leadership changes within the Korean Christian community.
The paper must be original and not previously published in an academic journal or book. The conference is open to doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, and junior faculty. While applicants from around the world are welcome, preference will be given to those based in the United States.
Applicants are required to submit a brief curriculum vitae and a proposal or abstract (limited to 400 words) by June 20, 2025. Notification of selection will be communicated by June 30, 2025. Accepted participants must submit their full papers (ranging from 7,000 to 10,000 words) to Prof. Sung-Deuk Oak by September 30, 2025.
Funding will cover round-trip airfare, accommodations in a single room for two nights, and local transportation costs (shuttle from LAX to UCLA) for all accepted participants.
All presenters will be allocated 30 minutes for their talks, followed by a 10-minute response and discussion session at the conference.
For further information, see the program webpage (http://koreanchristianity.humnet.ucla.edu) and contact Dr. Hyung-Wook Kim, assistant director of the UCLA Center for Korean Studies (hyung-wook.kim@international.ucla.edu), Ms. Peyton Park, program representative (ppark@international.ucla.edu), or Dr. Sung-Deuk Oak (oak@humnet.ucla.edu)
Sung-Deuk Oak
Dongsoon Im and Mija Im Endowed Chair
Associate Professor of Korean Christianity
234A Royce Hall, UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1540
Book Award: Books and Culture, a book review magazine, published by Christianity Today, announced on December 20, 2003 that Dr. Oak’s book, The Making of Korean Christianity, is awarded “the book of the year.”
The Making of Korean Christianity: Protestant Encounters with Korean Religions, 1876-1915. Sung-Deuk Oak. “Historiography of early encounters between Protestantism and Korean religious culture should be rewritten from the perspective of cultural exchanges beyond cultural imperialism.” Oak has given us a model for doing just that, not only for the Korean case in particular—his immediate subject—and not only for the phenomenal growth of Christianity in Asia more generally and in Africa over the last 150 years but also for church history over 2000 years, where we find—again and again, in wildly different circumstances—the “creative combination of the principle of Christian universality (vertical transcendence) and that of inculturation (horizontal adaptation).”
Interview with Dr. Oak. Newsletter of the Center for Global Christianity and Missions, Boston University School of Theology (Winter 2012)
Prof. David Yoo Appointed to Director of UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 2010
http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=39967
Oak to Spearhead English-Language Studies of Korean Christianity
http://www.international.ucla.edu/korea/article.asp?parentid=79083
Korean Press Lauds UCLA Donors
http://www.international.ucla.edu/korea/programs/article.asp?parentid=38292
Gift from ‘Average’ LA County Employees Advances Korean Studies
http://www.international.ucla.edu/asia/news/article.asp?parentid=39967
http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/archives/aascnewdirector.asp
http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/people/dyoo.asp
http://www.koreadaily.com/news/read.asp?art_id=392850
http://www.koreatimes.com/article/294466
Support the Korean Christianity Program of the UCLA Center for Korean Studies
Giving to the UCLA Center for Korean Studies
Coverage of Korean humanities at UCLA is the strongest anywhere beyond Korea. Help us to continue our excellence in scholarship and research by donating today.
Specify your donation for the building up a new field of Korean Christianity in USA.
It will be used specially for the scholarship of doctoral students, conference, and research progjects. Please contact Dr. Oak oak@humnet.ucla.edu.
Mr. & Mrs. Henry Luce in Incheon, Korea during the Boxer Uprising, 1900. Moffett Collection, PTS. The Henry Luce Foundation supported the Korean Chrsitianity Program at UCLA Center for Korean Studies from 2000-2007 and donated more than half million dollar for the program.
