History, it could be said, is the story of people. The question is: which people?
UW-Madison Associate Professor of History Monica Kim‘s work errs on the side of telling history from ordinary people – something called bottom-up history.
Dr. Kim studies the relationships between liberalism and racial formations, global militarism and sovereignty, and transnational political movements and international law. And she personalizes the Korean War in her book, The Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War: The Untold Story (Princeton University Press, 2019), through focusing on those who inhabited those rooms, she presents a picture of war that’s as much about individuals and identity as it is about battles and borders.
Professor Kim is part of the newest class of MacArthur Fellows, one of the highest honors for academic work in the country. She joins 8 O’Clock Buzz host Andy Moore to share how she found out that she had received a MacArthur award, and for more about her work.
More about the guest:
Monica Kim received a BA (2000) from Yale University and a PhD (2011) from the University of Michigan. She was an assistant professor in the Department of History at New York University from 2014 to 2020 and an assistant professor at University at Albany-SUNY from 2012 to 2014. Currently, she is an associate professor and the William Appleman Williams & David G. and Marion S. Meissner Chair in U.S. International and Diplomatic History at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Kim has published articles in journals such as History of the Present and positions: asia critique. She is a member of the editorial collective at Radical History Review and a core member of the Ending the Korean War Teaching Collective.
Photo courtesy John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
