Radical Ahjumma: Feminist Writers from the Korean Diaspora

Founded by writers Margaret Juhae Lee (Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History), S. Isabel Choi (Let the River Run), Nancy Jooyoun Kim (The Last Story of Mina Lee, What We Kept to Ourselves), and Hannah Michell (Excavations, The Defections), Radical Ahjumma is an online journal and collective that reclaims and rejoices in concepts of ahjumma, a Korean middle-aged woman with a large visor, often ridiculed or missing from recorded history and in front-facing society, their erasures as suppressions driven by war, dictatorships, patriarchy, and motherhood—which continue to impact women of all ages in Korea and its diaspora today. Each of these writers holds the theme of resistance in their writing, countering the idea that a woman’s worth should be assessed on the basis of age, looks, or servility. Radical Ahjumma is not simply a reclamation but a reimagination of the role of Korean women during upheaval and revolutionary times. The group is eager to foster a discussion on the evolving concept of ahjumma with conference members.

The group’s online journal will be launched at the conference. The first issue includes an interview with Elaine H. Kim, the trailblazing Asian American studies professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, whose memoir Double Take will be published in May 2026. Moderating the event and discussion with the audience will be Joseph Han, Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and author of Nuclear Family, winner of the 2024 AAAS Book Award.