Faculty Bio

Veda Hyunjin Kim

Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology

Education

• Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Amherst
• M.A., University of Chicago
• M.P.P., Seoul National University

About

Veda Hyunjin Kim, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. He instructs sociology and criminology courses as a means of collective emancipation. With students, he strives to understand the social world critically and take conscious actions. His regular course offering includes Introductory Sociology, Social Theory, Cultural and Social Change, and Crime and Deviance.

He researches crimes of the powerful in modern history. His current book project delves into the genocidal formation of the criminal state of "South" Korea as an outcome of post-1945 US imperialism. The book also recognizes the genocide survivors' decolonial endeavors, wherein they appreciated life and death amongst each other as life and death of holistic human beings—life and death that matter, by contrast to the understanding during the genocide. This recognition serves as a postcolonial critique against the government-affiliated transitional justice programs incapable of redressing past violence.

His recent works appeared in the British Journal of Sociology, Critical Sociology, Humanity and Society, and Journal of Genocide Research. He has guest-edited multiple special issues, most recently in the British Journal of Sociology.

Areas of Expertise

• Crimes of the Powerful
• State Crime
• Genocide
• Decolonial/Postcolonial Studies
• Feminism and Intersectionality
• Historical Sociology
• Social Theory
• East Asian and Korean studies