<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;margin:0cm;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">Call for Papers</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;margin:0cm;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;margin:0cm;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style=""><b style="">Material Modernities: Materiality, Space,
and Mobility in 20th-Century Korea</b></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0cm;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal"><span lang="EN-US" style=""><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0cm;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal"><span lang="EN-US" style=""><font face="arial, sans-serif">Conference Statement:</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0cm;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal"><span lang="EN-US" style=""><font face="arial, sans-serif"> </font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 8pt"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="">The 2026
Keimyung International Conference on Korean Studies (KICKS 2026), to be held at
Keimyung University in Daegu on <u><b>November 11\u201312, 2026</b></u>, invites scholars of
Korean Studies to examine how material environments, urban infrastructures, and
mobility systems reshaped everyday life and social consciousness in 20th-century
Korea. Roads, electricity networks, railways, streetcar lines, ports, water
systems, factories, housing projects, and digital infrastructures not only
altered physical landscapes but also reconfigured sensory experience, social relations,
labor, and collective aspirations.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color:black"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="">These material systems operated not merely as technical
supports but as formative conditions of social life. As Korea transitioned
through the Great Han Empire, Japanese colonial rule, post-war reconstruction,
rapid industrialization, and the rise of global metropolitan cities, material
transformations fundamentally reorganized how people lived, moved, and imagined
their presents and futures. </span></font></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 8pt"><span lang="EN-US" style=""><font face="arial, sans-serif">By foregrounding
materiality, this conference seeks to understand how matter, space, and
mobility produced new forms of belonging, alienation, imagination, and
resistance. We welcome interdisciplinary approaches from history, cultural
studies, anthropology, geography, literature, and visual arts, and related
fields that critically explore how material forces shaped Korean subjectivities
and everyday practices. Moving beyond earlier theories of materialism, the analytic
focus on \u201cmaterial modernities\u201d emphasizes how things themselves participate in
social life. This perspective reconsiders the relationship between human and
non-human actors by defining objects, substances, and technologies as active
mediators and showing how meanings are co-produced by both humans and
non-humans. Through this dialogue, KICKS 2026 aims to articulate new frameworks
for interpreting the material and experiential dimensions of modern Korean
history.</font></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 8pt"><span lang="EN-US" style=""><font face="arial, sans-serif">To be considered
as a KICKS 2026 presenter, please send a short bio and abstract (approximately
300 words) to <a href="mailto:kicksconference@gmail.com" style="color:blue">kicksconference@gmail.com</a>
by <u><b>February 15, 2026</b></u>. The conference organizers will notify selected participants
by mid-March. Selected presenters will receive round-trip airfare or domestic
transportation expenses, accommodations, and meals during the conference. Following
the conference, outstanding presenters will be invited to submit manuscripts for
publication consideration in <i>Acta Koreana</i>.</font></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0cm;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal"><span lang="EN-US" style=""><font face="arial, sans-serif"> </font></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin:0cm;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="">Brainstorming Questions:</span><span lang="EN-US" style=""></span></font></p>

<ul><li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 8pt"><span lang="EN-US" style=""><font face="arial, sans-serif">How did modern infrastructures, including railroads,
     ports, roads, water systems reorganize everyday life, rhythms of labor,
     and social hierarchies in Korea?</font></span></li>
 <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 8pt"><span lang="EN-US" style=""><font face="arial, sans-serif">In what ways did forms of mobility such as streetcars,
     buses, highways and automobiles reshape Korean understanding of space, time,
     and modernity?</font></span></li>
 <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 8pt"><span lang="EN-US" style=""><font face="arial, sans-serif">How did new materials and mass-produced goods,
     including cement, glass, plastics, household appliances, and textiles, transform
     domestic life, sensory experience, or gendered divisions of labor?</font></span></li>
 <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 8pt"><span lang="EN-US" style=""><font face="arial, sans-serif">How did Koreans contest, appropriate, or
     reimagine the infrastructural systems imposed by colonial powers, the
     developmental state, or global capital?</font></span></li>
 <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 8pt"><span lang="EN-US" style=""><font face="arial, sans-serif">How did material practices of consumption,
     waste, and recycling reflect or challenge dominant narratives of
     development and progress?</font></span></li>
 <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;word-break:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 8pt"><span lang="EN-US" style=""><font face="arial, sans-serif" style="">How might we conceptualize materiality and
     mobility as co-producers of historical consciousness and cultural identity
     in twentieth-century Korea?</font></span></li></ul><div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif">Please feel free to reach out to <a href="mailto:kicksconference@gmail.com">kicksconference@gmail.com</a>, if you have any questions. </font></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif">Best regards,</font></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif">Janet Y. Lee</font></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif">Keimyung University </font></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div></div>