Chris Hanscom receives Fulbright for 2024-25
Rod Searcey
Hanscom, pictured in 2023 at a Stanford University event, will spend his Fulbright year studying the lesser-known works of Korean author Cho Sehŭi.
| July 24, 2024
The author Cho Sehŭi was among the most celebrated Korean authors of the late 20th century.
He is best-known for “A Dwarf Launches a Little Ball,” a bestselling 1978 story collection that considered the effects of rapid modernization in his homeland. But it’s Cho’s lesser-known work — in fiction, nonfiction and photography — that will capture Chris Hanscom’s attention for the next several months.
Hanscom, a UCLA professor of Asian languages and cultures, has been awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study in Seoul for the 2024–25 academic year. From his base at Korea University’s Research Institute of Korean Studies, Hanscom will visit archives of the major historical events that inspired Cho’s writing.
Cho, who died in 2022, was part of the so-called “hangŭl generation,” the first to be educated in Korean after the end of decades of Japanese colonial rule. Although “The Dwarf” sold more than 1 million copies and has reportedly been published in more than 300 editions, it also was subject to censorship efforts by authoritarian regimes in the 1970s and ’80s.
“Beginning with Cho’s work, my project aims to engage with questions of political speech and historical truth in contemporary South Korean fiction,” Hanscom said.
Hanscom added that beyond the funding it provides for living and research expenses, the Fulbright serves as “a kind of platform that encourages and facilitates interaction and cooperation with scholars on the ground in Korea.”
Hanscom’s teaching focuses on Korean literature and cinema; his latest book is “Impossible Speech: The Politics of Representation in Contemporary Korean Literature and Film” (2024).
Related news: 4 Humanities graduate students receive Fulbright-Hays fellowships (Nov. 27, 2023)