Nam Center Colloquium Series | Curative Violence: How to Inhabit the Time Machine with Disability

Presenting from her book, Kim will examine a direct link between cure and violence that appears in the representations of disability and Cold War imperialism in South Korea. She explores the notion of “folded time” in which the present disappears through the imperative of cure in the case of Hansen’s disease care. By thinking about the imperative of cure as a time machine that seeks to take us to the past and to the future by universalizing disability experiences and denying coevalness, Kim explores the possibility of inhabiting in the present with disability and illness. While calling attention to the transnational construction of disability under militarism and imperialism, Kim argues that the possibility of life with disability that is free from violence depends on the creation of a space and time where cure is understood as a negotiation rather than a necessity.

Eunjung Kim is associate professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies and Disability Studies Program at Syracuse University. Her book, Curative Violence (Duke University Press) received Alison Piepmeier Award from the National Women's Studies Association and the James B. Palais Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies. Her work appeared in several journals and anthologies, such as GLQ, Disability & Society, Sexualities, Catalyst, Intersectionality and Beyond, Against Health, and Asexualities.

Communication access real-time translation (CART) is provided for this event.

Photograph by Park Young Sook, The Madwomen Project: A Flower Shakes Her (2005). Description of image: A woman wearing blue shirt and navy pants is lying on a bed of pink wildflower in bloom, with her eyes closed and a slight smile on her face.