Yu Jin Ko
Professor of English
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Shakespearean engaged in bringing theatre and academia as well as East and West into greater dialogue; global interests extend into fiction, drama and film.
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, 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: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet in Korea: National Reconciliation in the Green World of the Madang,” “The Winter’s Tale in Performance from the Ends of Opposed Winds,” and “Intercultural Intermediality: The Unspoken Text in Intercultural Film Adaptations of Shakespeare.” 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 courses for majors, and 300-level seminars on Shakespeare in performance. 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 courses that explore literature, drama and film in global contexts (Writers of Color across the Globe, America’s Journey through Drama, Short Stories into Film across the Globe). The courses give me and the students to read and view wonderful works for both pure pleasure and for insights into cultures around the world.
When I am not running about attending performances or reading for pleasure, 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 horribly 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 in the City of New York
- M.A., University of Cambridge
- Ph.D., Yale University
Current and upcoming courses
America's Journey through Drama
ENG232
A survey of American Drama that takes a journey through America’s history from the early 20th century to the present. Issues explored will include: family trauma; the American Dream; evolving ideas of race, class, gender and sexuality; and identity. Works will include: Thornton Wilder’s classic about small-town America, Our Town; Lorraine Hansberry’s story of a Black family’s struggle, A Raisin in the Sun; Tony Kushner’s meditation on the AIDS era, Angels in America; Melinda Lopez’s story of Cuban emigrés, Sonia Flew; Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer winner about class, race and social inequality, Sweat; the filmed version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton; and the playwright Celine Song’s film about transcultural romance, Past Lives.
(ENG 232 and THST 232 are cross-listed courses.)-
Short Stories into Film across the Globe
ENG129
This course will explore and enjoy how film makers across the globe have adapted short stories into remarkable and compelling films that stand apart from the sources as works of art in themselves. We will start with the stories but look at how the films go beyond fidelity to the original to create works with their own aesthetics and integrity. Films will include Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Rear Window, Gabriel Axel's Babette's Feast, the Iranian film-maker Abbas Kiarostami's heart-warming Where is the Friend's House?, the Turkish film Winter Sleep (based on a work by Anton Chekhov), the neo-Western Brokeback Mountain, the Indian film Seven Sins Forgiven (based on a story about a woman whose six husbands mysteriously die), and the Korean hit film Burning.