Collegiate Affiliation
Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature

Evelyn Shih is Korea Foundation Assistant Professor at the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies with a joint appointment in Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature. She teaches courses on film and media, as well as Korean culture and literature within a comparative and transnational framework. She studies colonial, Cold War, and contemporary East Asia.

Her first book manuscript, Cold War Laugh Lines: Comic Communication in Authoritarian Taiwan and South Korea, explores the comic forms that flourish under heavy censorship and ideological control. She dives into the archives of the anti-Communist sphere in Cold War East Asia to argue for the transnational circulation of a regional style of comic expression. Her work interweaves methodologies from affect and phenomenology, media historiography, environmental humanities, aesthetics and critical theory. Her second book will trace the origins of modern comic expression into the Japanese colonial period, looking into new concepts such as "nonsense" and "neurasthenia" that were introduced to Taiwan and Korea during that time.

Educational Background & Specialties
Open Close

Educational Background

  • PhD: East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California Berkeley, 2018
  • MA: Asian Studies, University of California Berkeley, 2010
  • BA: Literature, Yale University, 2005

Specialties

  • Korean Literature, Film, and Media
  • Taiwanese and Sinophone Literature, Film, and Media
  • Media Phenomenology
  • Media Historiography
  • Affect Theory
  • Environmental Media
  • Cold War Studies
  • Sound Studies
  • Television Studies