2020 Sejong Writing Competition

Judges

Sijo Judges: Gyung-ryul Jang | David McCann | Mark Peterson
Essay Judges: David Schaafsma | Sora Kim-Russell | Joanne Rhim

 

Gyung-ryul Jang

sijo

Gyung-ryul Jang received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from Seoul National University, Korea, and his Ph.D. degree in English from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Jang is now professor of English at Seoul National University. He has contributed numerous articles on contemporary literary theory and Korean literature to various literary journals in Korea. He has recently published two books of critical essays in sijo poetry: Poetics of Temporality: Toward a New Understanding of Sijo Poetry (Seoul: Seoul National University Press, 2013); and What Does Change and What Should Not Change: Critical Essays in Sijo Poetry (Seoul: Literary Notebook Pub. Co., 2017). Some other recent publications are as follows: Joy of Reading Poetry: A Critical Reading of Contemporary Korean Poetry (Seoul: Literary Notebook Pub. Co., 2014); What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen: Essays in Korean Literature (Seoul: Moonji Pub. Co., 2016); Somewhere Between Insight and Blindness: Critical Essays in Contemporary Korean Literary Trend (Seoul: Munhakdongne Pub. Group, 2017); and Is it a Petal or a Butterfly?: Essays in Korean Sijo and Japanese Haiku and Tanka (Seoul: Lyric Poetry & Poetics Pub. Co., 2017).

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David McCann

sijo

David McCann taught Korean literature at Harvard University until his retirement in 2014. He particularly enjoyed teaching his class Writing Asian Poetry, a creative writing class exploring the Classical Chinese, Japanese haiku, and Korean sijo forms for English-language poetry. His more recent books include Urban Temple, a collection of his English-language sijo poems from Bo-Leaf Press in 2010, published in a dual-language, Korean and English edition by Changbi Publishers in Seoul in 2012; Slipping Away, a Korean p’ansori-style narrative poem from Finishing Line Press, a chapbook published in 2013; and Same Bird, new and selected poems from Moon Pie Press in 2016. One of his haiku poems published in Acorn haiku journal received The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Award in 2014 and is included in Haiku 2015, from Modern Haiku Press. David translated the poems included in the collection The Temple of Words: An Anthology of Modern Korean Buddhist Poetry published by the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, Seoul, in 2017.

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Mark Peterson

sijo

Mark Peterson (Professor Emeritus of Korean history, literature and language, Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages. Brigham Young University, Provo, UT) received B.A.'s in Asian Studies and Anthropology from Brigham Young University in 1971. He received his M.A. in 1973 and his Ph.D. in 1987, both from Harvard University in the field of East Asian Languages and Civilization. Prior to coming to BYU in 1984 he was the director of the Fulbright program in Korea from 1978 to 1983. He has been the coordinator of the Asian Studies Program and was the director of the undergraduate programs in the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies. Dr. Peterson is a member of the Association for Asian Studies, where he was formerly the chair of the Korean Studies Committee; was also the book review editor for the Journal of Asian Studies for Korean Studies books. He is also a member of the Royal Asiatic Society, the International Association for Korean Language Education, the International Korean Literature Association, and the American Association of Korean Teachers. He served as past editor-in-chief for the Korea Journal, published by UNESCO in Korea, from 2015 to 2017. Currently he is working with a research center he founded called The Frog Outside the Well Research Center, which publishes an active YouTube channel by that name. He also writes a weekly column for the Korea Times.

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David Schaafsma

essay

David Schaafsma, Professor of English and Director of the Program in English Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is interested in scholarly issues concerning the preparation of English teachers, young adult literature, community-based literacy, the uses of narrative in research and learning, and the relationship between literacy, democracy, and social action. His books include Narrative Inquiry in English Education (Teachers College Press); Jane Addams in the Classroom (The University of Illinois Press), and Eating on the Street: Teaching Literacy in a Multicultural Society (The University of Pittsburgh Press)

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Sora Kim-Russell

essay

Sora Kim-Russell is a literary translator based in Seoul. Her publications include Kim Un-su's The Plotters; Hwang Sok-yong’s At Dusk, which was longlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International; and Pyun Hye-young’s City of Ash and Red, and The Hole, which won the 2017 Shirley Jackson Award for best novel. She has taught literary translation at Ewha Woman's University, the Literary Translation Institute of Korea, and the Bread Loaf Translators' Conference. Her latest translation, The Law of Lines by Pyun Hye-young, will be released on May 5, 2020.

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Joanne Rhim Lee

essay

Joanne Rhim Lee teaches Asian History at Century College in St. Paul, Minnesota and has written for the Korean Quarterly for the past twenty years. She is originally from Chicago, and graduated from Carleton College and Stanford University.

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