Yu Jin Ko
Professor of English
Shakespearean engaged in bringing theatre and academia into greater dialogue; can also be found at home with kids or on soccer field.
My publications have centered on Shakespeare, with an emphasis on performance. My first book, Mutability and Division on Shakespeare’s Stage, appeared in 2004. I have also co-edited a book collection that brings together essays from scholars and theatre professionals: Shakespeare's Sense of Character: On the Page and From the Stage. My latest book extends my interest in Shakespeare in performance to the global stage: Shakespeare's Original Stage Conditions and their Afterlives across the Globe: From the Wooden O to the Yards of Seoul (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2024). My articles and reviews have continued to focus on Shakespeare in performance, both in the theatre and on film, and with a growing interest in productions across the globe. They include an essay on a production of Macbeth by inmates of a correctional institution ("Macbeth Behind Bars") as well as a study of A Midsummer Night's Dream in performance (“Violence and Consensual Imagination in A Midsummer Night’s Dream”). Some recent essays include: “Intercultural Intermediality: The Unspoken Text in Intercultural Film Adaptations of Shakespeare” and "The site of burial in two Korean Hamlets." In a related vein, I have also been studying the afterlives of Shakespeare's works in non-dramatic genres. A recent foray into this area is "Youth, Authenticity and Social Change from Shakespeare's Hamlet to Yoon Dong Ju." Finally, I have been putting my toes into the realm of translation, with my latest effort being a co-translator for the Korean-American artist Kim Wonsook's In the Garden: Stories of Kim Wonsook's Paintings.
I teach Shakespeare at every level—an introductory survey for non-majors, 200-level required courses for majors, and 300-level seminars on Shakespeare in performance. I have also taught a MOOC on Shakespeare with the edX consortium called "Shakespeare: On the Page and in Performance." The archived version of the course (still free and open to anyone in the world) can be found through the following link: https://www.edx.org/course/shakespeare-page-performance-wellesleyx-eng112x. Whatever the format or level of the class, I always try to involve some element of performance, whether it be attending a live performance, viewing recordings, or getting students on their feet to perform scenes. It is my belief that to bring Shakespeare's plays fully alive, we must bring literary and theatrical analysis together. I do teach authors other than Shakespeare, however. I enjoy teaching in particular introductory lecture courses (Studies in Fiction, Writers of Color across the Globe), which allow me and the students to read some wonderful novels for pure pleasure and for insights into cultures around the world.
When I am not enjoying time with my family (wife and two sons), I tend to be engaged in my other passions: watching and playing soccer (in an organized league that's aptly called The New England Over the Hill Soccer League), struggling to learn the music of my youth on guitar, and watching Korean dramas that are equal parts trashy and addictive.
Education
- B.A., Columbia University
- M.A., Cambridge University (Clare College)
- Ph.D., Yale University
Current and upcoming courses
This course takes a whirlwind world tour through the imaginative literature of writers of color across the globe. Each work will provide a distinct, exhilarating, and sometimes heart-breaking experience of a world culture from the inside. However, a number of overlapping threads will connect the works: generational change and conflict amid cross-cultural globalization; evolving ideas of love, desire and identity amidst cultural traumas; colonialism and its after-effects; the persistence of suffering. The syllabus will include: Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart; Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things; Wajdi Mouawad’s family drama set in a war-torn Middle East, Scorched; Han Kang's contemporary novel about gender struggle in Korea, The Vegetarian; the Argentinian Mariana Enriquez’s stunning short story collection, Things We Lost in the Fire; and Yaa Gyasi’s epic novel that traces a family’s history from West Africa to post-slavery America, Homegoing. Fulfills the Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.
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The great tragedies and the redemptive romances from the second half of Shakespeare's career, during the reign of James I, such as Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Winter’s Tale. These plays portray humans pushed to the limit of endurance and raised to the heights of blessedness, and also find Shakespeare challenging the limits of genre. Study of the plays’ language and poetry will be complemented by a survey of their stage histories and an immersion in their present incarnations in performance and in adaptations across the world.