Featured guest : Jennifer Kwon Dobbs - author of "Paper Pavilion," currently working on second book, guest editor of the 3rd edition of JKAS and assistant professor of English at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota
Reporting by: kim thompson
*** Jennifer Kwon Dobbs' bio:
"Jennifer Kwon Dobbs received the New England Poetry Club's Shelia Motton Book Award for her debut collection of poetry, Paper Pavilion (White Pine Press 2007). Currently assistant professor of English at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, Kwon Dobbs is working on an essay collection about the political geographies of overseas Korean adoptee birth searches and a second book of poetry."
Blog and info about Paper Pavilion: http://www.jkwondobbs.com
A bit more about Jennifer: (Report)
Jennifer Kwon Dobbs:
Jennifer is currently in Seoul for the month of January to work on her second book which will be a collection of prose and essays on "the geographies of our (adoptees) birth searches and the maps we end up making." She is also in Seoul to work on the third issue of the Journal of Korean Adoption Studies of which she is the guest editor and to do follow up work interviewing women from the Korean single mother's group Miss Mamma Mia.
The book that she is currently writing is the second in a two part "series" that evolved out of her Literature and Creative Writing dissertation at the University of Southern California where she received her MA and PhD. Her first book was a book of poetry entitled "Paper Pavilion” which received the New England Poetry Club's Sheila Motton Book Award. (For excerpts and more info on this book: www.jkwondobbs.com )
Jennifer's second book, which currently has a publisher but not a specific release date, will focus on the Korean adoptee search for birth family and how in this search is the discovery of reunion and identity. Through essays and prose she will explore the themes of "success and failure" in relation to the search process as well as discovery both in terms of personal and cultural identity as well as the creation and discovery of community. It will talk about why the birth search for adoptees is powerful and how the search reveals how important it is for us to go back and forth in our stories - that the story is not linear and that "the fake straightening of that loop (is a part of the violence)."
Jennifer is also as the guest editor of the third Journal of Korean Adoption Studies - which is published by the Korean adoptee organization Global Overseas Adoptees' Link (G.O.A.'L.) The peer-reviewed journal is a collection of academic essays, testimonies of adoption, illustrations, and reviews of new publications or releases related to Korean adoption studies. The third issue of Journal of Korean Adoption Studies (JKAS) focuses on community as a significant project that Korean adoptees have been engaged in building since the early 1980s. This issue facilitates opportunities to examine struggles for community by documenting previous models on which adoptees have relied to imagine possible directions toward developing collective unity. For more information go to: http://www.goal.or.kr and click under "References Room" where you will see the link for the Journal of Korean Adoption Studies.
To purchase the 1st issue go to: http://goal.or.kr/eng/?slms=room&lsms=1&sl=6&ls=46
or email:
To submit work for consideration in this issue email: jkas.goal@gmail.com
Deadline for submissions is: 1 April 2010
Jennifer is also a member of the steering committee for the academic symposium to be hosted by IKAA in August 2010 that last 1:48 guest Kim Park Nelson is a part of.
TO LISTEN click play
About 1:48
This is a report that will air once every 3 weeks and will feature korean adoptees who are artists, activists, and philosophers.
I (kim thompson) will do the reporting and through the suggestions of others as well as my own contacts bring on different voices from within the adoptee community who live both in Seoul and abroad. For the time being it will air as a regular report that is featured on the "Steve Hatherly Show"
The reason that I've named the report thus is due to this fact (which I extracted from an article by Jane Jeong Trenka )
"since 1953 about 200,000 korean children have been sent to the west for adoption. with korea having a population of approximately 48 million this means one in every 48 korean citizens is affected by adoption. this show will feature some of those 200,000 who have returned home."
HOW TO BE A PART OF SUPPORTING THIS SHOW:
It is to our knowledge the first consistent featuring of a report like this on the radio. Your comments and feedback and listening participation are vital. PLEASE make sure to email Tim Alper at TBS radio with your support for the show and tell him how you heard it (either live or on my blog)
Tim Alper: tda7@hotmail.com
If you have guest or topic suggestions please email me (Kim Thompson) at: kimmer_t@hotmail.com
* The purpose of this show is to feature the voices of Korean adoptees
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3 comments:
Thank you for the insightful interview with Jennifer Kwon Dobbs. I sat this morning and listened to the interview for twenty minutes and remembered why Dobbs is one of my favorite poets. I also appreciate the good questions and the time allotted for Jennifer to elaborate on her book, her take(s) on the Korean diaspora, and her current projects. This was inspiring---many thanks.
Thanks for posting this, I missed hearing Jennifer's broadcast. Do you have a trackback link? If not I'll figure out how to put you on my bloglist.
Don
soo nice work all the work is apple pie order
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