Recent Graduate: Chong Bum Kim, PhD '04

Suejean Cho

Chong Bum Kim, PhD '04

Chong Bum Kim received his PhD from Harvard in modern Korean history in June 2004. His dissertation was entitled "Christianity in Colonial Korea: The Culture and Politics of Proselytization," and it examines the growth of Protestant Christianity in Korea and its relationship to indigenization in the initial, formative stage of the religion, looking at historical actors as diverse as Western missionaries, Korean preachers, intellectuals, and ordinary believers. An article by Chong Bum, "Preaching the Apocalypse in Colonial Korea: The Protestant Millennialism of Kil Son-ju" will appear in a forthcoming anthology, Christianity in Korea, edited by Robert Buswell and Timothy Lee, published by the University of Hawai'i Press.

During his graduate career at Harvard, Chong Bum discovered his passion for teaching. He has taught several Core classes including Confucian Humanism, Cultural Identities of Korea, and The Two Koreas, and also sophomore and junior tutorials in East Asian Studies. In the spring of 2004, Chong Bum taught a class on modern Japanese history at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. A dedicated mentor, he not only prepared engaging lectures, but also encouraged his students to be active learners, as he took students on a field trip to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts for its Japanese postcards exhibit.

Chong Bum was awarded the Edward Willet Wagner Prize for the best paper presented at the 2002 Harvard Korean Studies Graduate Student Conference: "Old-time Religion: Protestantism and Korean Religions in the Colonial Period." In addition to the history of Christianity in Korea, Chong Bum's research interests extend to the areas of print culture, millennialism, the regional history of northwest Korea, and poetry translation. In fact, he has recently translated works by the poet Chu Yohan in David McCann's Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry.

For the 2004-2005 academic year, Chong Bum will serve as a post-doctoral fellow at the Korea Institute. With this position comes the honor of organizing a post-doctoral workshop. The Institute congratulates Chong Bum on his accomplishments and looks forward to his achievements this year and as he continues in his career.