Pain and Empathy: Exploring the Literature of Nobel Laureate Han Kang

John J. Wood is Senior Associate Vice Provost of International Education at the University at Buffalo. He is responsible for administering UB’s international partnerships and programs.

Elizabeth Otto is Director of the Humanities Institute and Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University at Buffalo. She is the author or co-author of "Haunted Bauhaus: Occult Spirituality, Gender Fluidity, Queer Identities, and Radical Politics" (MIT Press, 2019), "Bauhaus Women: A Global Perspective" (Bloomsbury, 2019), and "Tempo, Tempo! The Bauhaus Photomontages of Marianne Brandt" (Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, 2005). Her curatorial work includes the 2024 German exhibition “Bauhaus and National Socialism” and its catalogue. Otto is the recipient of grants and fellowships from institutions including the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the Getty Research Institute and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Hye Seung Chung is an Associate Professor of Korean Film and Media in the Department of Media Study at the University at Buffalo. She is the author or co-author of "Hollywood Asian: Philip Ahn and the Politics of Cross-Ethnic Performance" (Temple University Press, 2006), "Kim Ki-duk" (University of Illinois Press, 2012), "Movie Migrations: Transnational Genre Flows and South Korean Cinema" (Rutgers University Press, 2015), "Hollywood Diplomacy: Film Regulation, Foreign Relations, and East Asian Representations" (Rutgers University Press, 2020), "Movie Minorities: Transnational Rights Advocacy and South Korean Cinema" (Rutgers University Press, 2021), and "Cinema under National Reconstruction: State Censorship and South Korea's Cold War Film Culture" (Rutgers University Press, 2024). 

Mark A. Nathan is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and Director of the Asian Studies Program at the University at Buffalo. He is the author of "From the Mountains to the Cities: A History of Buddhist Propagation in Modern Korea" (University of Hawai`i Press, 2018), and the co-editor "Buddhism and Law: An Introduction" (Cambridge University Press, 2014). His work focuses on the history of Buddhism and religion in twentieth-century Korea, religious pluralism and propagation, and the intersection of law and religion. 

Walter N. Hakala is an Associate Professor in the Department of English and Asian Studies Program at the University at Buffalo. He is the author of "Negotiating Languages: Urdu, Hindi, and the Definition of South Asia"(Columbia University Press, 2016; Primus, 2017) and has published articles on coffee in 18th-century Delhi, language in Afghanistan, and South Asian lexicography. His current project is a survey of Urdu epigraphy.