Wednesday, March 11 at 6:15 PM, CMU101

Sarah Park

Mirroring Adoption: Illusions of Transracially Adopted Koreans in Youth Literature

Sarah Park is a Library Science professor at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, MN.  Her research focuses on depictions of Korean adoptees in children's literature. She has taught workshops critically analyzing adoptive children's literature.

Sarah Park will analyze children's books which depict orphaned Korean children in need of homes or in adoptive placements. She also will discuss stories of adopted Koreans that reflect the perceived experiences of adopted Koreans in the United States.

Wednesday, March 25 at 6:15 PM, CMU205

Jennifer Kwon Dobbs

"A Shape of Loss I Cannot Trace:" Poetry, Memory, and Korean Adoption

Jennifer Kwon Dobbs received the New England Poetry Club's Shelia Motton Book Award for her debut collection of poetry, Paper Pavilion, published in 2007. Kwon Dobbs, assistant professor of creative writing at St. Olaf College, is working on a second book of poetry as well as a collection of essays about the adopted Korean diaspora and forgetting.

Jennifer Kwon Dobbs will read selected poems as well as discuss the Korean adoptee's place in U.S. cultural imagination.

Wednesday, April 8 at 6:15 PM, CMU101

Kim Dalros Jackson 

HERE: The First Portrait Book of Korean Adoptees Living in Minnesota

Born in South Korea and adopted at the age of four, Kim Dalros Jackson is a photographer and graphic designer. She has been working on a book entitled Here, that documents the experience of Korean adoptees in Minnesota. She is an art director for a city magazine.

Kim Dalros Jackson will share how she communicates her own experiences as a Korean adoptee through photography. She will also talk about a photo book project that she has been producing with fellow Korean adoptee collaborators. Her presentation will include a photo slideshow of her work.

Wednesday, April 15 at 6:15 PM, CMU205

Jae Ran Kim

Korean Adoption Online:  The Trials and Tribulations of a Korean Adoptee Blogger
Jae Ran Kim is a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota's School of Social Work, where she is a Title IV-E Child Welfare Fellow. Since 1999, Jae Ran Kim has been a part of online groups for Korean adoptees and, in 2006, she began writing a blog, Harlow's Monkey, which is one of the most visited blogs about transracial and transnational adoption on the web.
 
Jae Ran Kim will discuss how her blog and other websites have been used by adoptive parents and adoption agencies to discuss issues of transracial and international adoption.