[KS] CFP: Gender and Justice in Korean Crime Narrative (Hybrid, April 10-11)_Jooyeon Rhee

[Jooyeon Rhee]

*Call for Papers *

“Divine Violence” and Noble Rage: Gender and Justice in Korean Crime
Fiction (hybrid)

The Institute for Korean Studies, Pennsylvania State University, April
10-11, 2026



*Keynote Speakers *

Caroline Reitz, CUNY Graduate Center

Ted Hughes, Columbia University



*A Special Lecture on Korean Literature*

Young-jun Lee, Director of the Research Institute for Korean Studies



*Conference Description*

In recent years, Korean crime narratives—crime fiction and crime-themed TV
dramas, films, and webtoons—have attracted significant attention from
readers, audiences, and scholars both within Korea and internationally. In
response to this growing popularity and the increasing scholarly interest
in the historical, social, and aesthetic dimensions of Korean crime
narratives, *the PSU-SKKU Consortium on Korean Popular Narratives and Media*
 is hosting its third international conference, aiming to explore cultural
representations of state, institutional, political, and everyday violence
against socially vulnerable and marginalized groups in both premodern and
modern Korean crime fiction.

*Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s concept of law-annihilating “divine
violence,” which confronts the injustice embedded in legal systems, as well
as feminist scholarship on gender and justice in modern crime narratives,
this conference invites papers that examine the aesthetic and political
potential of crime narratives in expressing the precarity of the
marginalized and the meaning of justice. We are particularly interested in
explorations of how such narratives engage with gender issues at the
intersections of sexuality, age, class, and race.* *Under the broad
umbrella of “crime fiction,” we welcome submissions that engage with
diverse media and subgenres—including film, TV dramas, webtoons, premodern
court novels, science fiction, gothic novels, detective stories, medical
horror, spy fiction, etc.—to address key questions about justice, violence,
and rage. We encourage scholars to develop papers based on their
presentations for publication in a special journal issue.*

We welcome submissions on a broad range of topics related to gender and
justice, including but not limited to:

- The state, institutional, and everyday gender violence

- Imaginations of femme fatale in historical and modern crime narrative

- Representations of LGBTQI+

- The problem of law and law enforcement

- The relationship between crime and justice

- Changing notion of motherhood

- Transnational dimension of literary and media crime genres

- Crime and masculinity

- Militarism, insurgence, and espionage in Cold War Korea(s)

- Historical memory of colonialism, the Korean War, and the democratic
movement

- Korean diaspora

- Refugees in South Korea

- Medicine and healthcare

- North Korean crime fiction

- (East) Asian crime fiction about Korea(s) or Korean diaspora



Two nights of accommodation and meals throughout the conference will be
provided. Limited funding is available through the Penn State Institute for
Korean Studies for presenters who travel to and participate in the
conference (priority will be given to graduate students and international
participants). *Please submit an abstract (250-words) **here*
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1CyKCqT2GgIigUxCSH08SDI8CKS6eAK_Di8rRauRZtIE/viewform?edit_requested=true>*
by
November 15, 2025. When submitting your abstract, please also indicate
whether you would like to participate online or in person. *The selection
committee will communicate with scholars in mid-December 2025. Any
inquiries may be addressed to Jooyeon Rhee (jxr5820 at psu.edu).


Thank you!


Jooyeon Rhee

Pennsylvania State University
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