Title: Disrupting Permanent War: Anti-Imperialist Mapping of the Korean War on the National Mall

Abstract: Ending the Korean War Section is proposing to lead a teach-in that focuses on “Disrupting Permanent War: An Anti-Imperialist Mapping of the Korean War on the National Mall.” In May 2024, EKW collective organized a political action at the Korean War Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC. We were joined by Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition, Nodutdol, and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM). We gave speeches, marched, and conducted other disruptive performative acts that defamiliarized US-centric, imperialist memorialization of the conflict which elides the war’s asymmetrical brutality, ongoing nature, and far-reaching harms.

At AAAS, this teach-in will focus on how the participants of this action sought to engage with and impart to the unwitting tourists at the National Mall critical context and alternative perspectives to the state memory enshrined at the Korean War Memorial. This teach-in will reflect on this action, and focus on how such an anti-imperialist mapping of the Korean War puts into practice EKW collective's ongoing vision on the power of political education and activism.

Participants may include these members of the EKW section:
Christine Hong, Professor, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies and Literature, University of California Santa Cruz
S. Heijin Lee, Assistant Professor, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Hawai’i, Mānoa
Junyoung Verónica Kim, Visiting Scholar, Asian/Pacific/American Institute, New York University
Madeline Han, Graduate Student, American Studies, Yale University
Ka-eul Yoo, Assistant Professor, Global and International Studies, University of California, Irvine
Kingsley Song, Graduate Student, History, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Jinah Kim, Professor, Communication Studies and Asian Studies, California State University, Northridge
Sung Eun Kim, Assistant Professor, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Duke University
Monica Kim, Associate Professor and the William Appleman Williams and David G. and Marion S. Meissner Chair in US International and Diplomatic History, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Hosu Kim, Associate Professor, Sociology, Anthropology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, College of Staten Island