Event Details:

This talk explores the interplay between aesthetics, performance, and diasporic politics. Dr. Elizabeth W. Son will focus on the peace advocacy of Women Cross DMZ, a Korean diasporic-led collective of feminist activists who are calling for a formal end to the Korean War and the centering of women in peacebuilding processes. During peace symposia in North Korea and South Korea and walks in 2015, Women Cross DMZ utilized objects - scarves, banners, and quilts - inspired by jogakbo, a Korean patchwork-style cloth that originated during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). Looking at the multiple crossings of Women Cross DMZ through jogakbo as an object and process attunes us to the temporal and scalar aspects of varied practices of peace advocacy.

Dr. Elizabeth W. Son is an associate professor in the Department of Theatre at Northwestern University, with faculty affiliations in Asian American Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Performance Studies. She is an award-winning author, educator, and public scholar dedicated to researching and uplifting Korean and Korean diasporic women's involvement in the performing arts and activism. Dr. Son is the author of the award-winning book Embodied Reckonings: "Comfort Women," Performance, and Transpacific Redress (2018), among other articles, book chapters, and public scholarship. She is currently completing her next book titled Diasporic Care: Performance, Histories, and Communities, which looks at how Korean diasporic women artists and activists navigate the enduring reverberations of war, militarization, and displacement. Dedicated to working with Asian American community organizations on gender-based justice issues, Dr. Son also partners with Chicago-based KAN-WIN as a co-founding member of their "comfort women" justice advocacy team.