Professor Heonik Kwon received his PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. He is currently a senior research fellow at Trinity College in the University of Cambridge. Prior to his current appointment, Prof. Kwon taught at the London School of Economics and Edinburgh University. Prof. Kwon’s scholarship is primarily based in his training as an anthropologist, but his work has far-reaching implications for such disciplines history, sociology and political science. His doctoral research investigated hunter-gatherer societies in northern Sakhalin, and his subsequent research has looked at how people deal with the war and memory in Vietnam and the Koreas. This work uses ethnographic techniques to look at the rituals that warProfessor Heonik Kwon received his PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. He is currently a senior research fellow at Trinity College in the University of Cambridge. Prior to his current appointment, Prof. Kwon taught at the London School of Economics and Edinburgh University. Prof. Kwon’s scholarship is primarily based in his training as an anthropologist, but his work has far-reaching implications for such disciplines history, sociology and political science. His doctoral research investigated hunter-gatherer societies in northern Sakhalin, and his subsequent research has looked at how people deal with the war and memory in Vietnam and the Koreas. This work uses ethnographic techniques to look at the rituals that war’s survivors use to deal with the aftermath of violence and loss. He has also done innovative work on the Cold War, subverting the grand ideological narrative that is familiar in the West and taking the perspective of the postcolonial nations, where local conditions led to a much different experience. He has also collaborated on work involving the role that art has played in sustaining the dynastic politics of North Korea. Prof. Kwon is currently working with scholars from the US, the UK and South Korea on a project entitled Beyond the Korean War. The goal of this interdisciplinary project is to re-conceptualise contemporary Korean history.
Prof. Kwon is a prolific writer with several prize-winning books to his credit, including After the Massacre: Commemoration and Consolation in Ha My and My Lai, for which he was awarded the 2008 Clifford Geertz prize, and Ghosts of War in Vietnam for which he received the 2009 George McT. Kahin Book Prize....more