The Division of International Support for Korean Studies held the 195th Colloquium on Korean Studies Abroad at the Grand Conference Room of Munhyeongwan Hall on Monday, December 15, 2025. The recipients of the 2025 AKS Fellowship presented the findings of their fellowship research, providing a platform for scholarly exchange.

In the first presentation, Dr. Roald Maliangkay (Professor, Australian National University) presented his research on the topic of “No Minute Trend: Selling Time Keeping During the Colonial Period.” Dr. Maliangkay analyzed how punctuality spread through Korean society during the colonial period via political discourse and commercial logic. In particular, he shed light on how the perception of Korea as a “society behind the times” was utilized to justify modern discipline, and how clocks became established as consumer goods symbolizing modernity and civility.

In the second presentation, Dr. We Jung Yi (Professor, Vanderbilt University) spoke on the topic of “Decolonial Re-membering? The Symbolic Return of Diasporic Heroes to the ‘Post–Cold War’ Korean Peninsula” Through a comparative analysis of the representations of two diasporic figures—professional wrestler Rikidōzan and revolutionary Alexandra Petrovna Kim—Dr. Yi examined the process by which these individuals are being reconstructed as objects of cultural memory in the twenty-first-century Korean Peninsula.

Korean and foreign researchers and graduate students attended the colloquium, engaging in a lively Q&A session and discussion centered on the two presentations. The Division of International Support for Korean Studies will continue to provide platforms for scholarly exchange, enabling researchers from diverse regions and fields to share and discuss their Korean Studies research.