John (Song Pae) Cho

Assistant Professor

Anthropology

Office: LM4 623
Phone: 250.807.8908
Email: john.cho@ubc.ca

Courses & Teaching

Anthropology, Gender and Sexuality, Queer Studies, Internet, Neoliberalism

Biography

As a queer anthropologist, I taught at Sarah Lawrence College in New York (2015-2018) and at Davidson College in North Carolina (2018-2020) before joining UBCO.

Degrees

PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Research Interests & Projects

I am currently completing my first book manuscript, Lifestyle Politics: South Korean Gay Men and the Internet, under contract with Duke University Press. It chronicles the complicated lives of the so-called “first generation” of gay men in South Korea at the intersection of new media, family values, and neoliberal market forces.

Selected Publications & Presentations

2020. “Luxury of Love: Gay Men in Recessionary South Korea.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 26(1): 151-159.

2020. “The Three Faces of South Korea’s Homosexuality: Bogal, Eban, and Neoliberal Gay.” In Queer Korea. Edited by Todd Henry. Durham: Duke University Press.

2017. “‘Deferred Futures’: Diverse Imaginaries of Gay Retirement in Post-IMF South Korea.” Culture, Theory and Critique (58)2): 1-17.

Selected Grants & Awards

I have been the recipient of national awards, including from The Korea Foundation, The Academy of Korean Studies, and the Social Science Research Council.

2020 Korean Studies Grant for Scholarly Publication, The Academy of Korean Studies

2019 Faculty Study and Research Grant, Davidson College

2018 Certificate of Recognition of Teaching, Sarah Lawrence College

2018 Faculty Research and Development Fund, Sarah Lawrence College

2016 Ziesing Fund for Faculty Research and Travel, Sarah Lawrence College

2015 Korean Studies Workshop for Junior Faculty, Social Science Research Council

2013 Soon Young Kim Postdoctoral Fellowship, Korea Institute, Harvard University

2012 Social Science Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship for Transregional Research, University of California, Berkeley

2012 Scholar-in-Residence, Beatrice Bain Critical Feminist Research Group, University of California, Berkeley (declined)

2011 Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, The Center for Korean Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Professional Services/Affiliations/Committees

I am currently finishing up my 3-year term as a councilor for Society for East Asian Anthropology in the American Anthropological Association.