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Todd A. Henry

Curriculum Vitae

Todd A. Henry (PhD, UCLA History, 2006) is full professor of modern Korea with an interest in the period of Japanese rule (1910–1945) and its postcolonial afterlives (1945–present). A social and cultural historian attuned to global forces that (re)produce lived spaces, he studies cross-border processes linking South Korea, North Korea, Japan, and the US in the creation of “Hot War” militarisms, the transpacific practice of biomedical sciences, and the lived experiences of heteropatriarchal capitalism. Also a historian of gender, sex, and sexuality, Dr. Henry seeks to expand Euro-American-centric approaches to queerness, transgenderism, and intersexuality through a sustained focus on Asian forms of embodiment that center the geopolitics of imperialism/colonialism, military occupation, and diasporic mobility.

 

Dr. Henry’s first book, Assimilating Seoul (University of California Press, 2014; Korean translation, 2020)—the winner of a 2020 Sejong Book Prize in History, Geography, and Tourism—addressed the violent but contested role of public spaces in colonial Korea. He has written several related articles on questions of place, race, and nation in colonizing and decolonizing movements on the peninsula (see “publications” tab for details).

 

In recent years, Dr. Henry has been working on several academic studies and creative works on global South Korea. They include two monographs—Profits of Queerness: Media, Biomedicine, and Citizenship in Authoritarian South Korea, 1950–1980 (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2026) and Bodies of Excess: Sex Tourism, the AIDS Crisis, and Transgender Advocacy in Globalizing South Korea, 1980–1995 (writing in progress)—as well as two films—a 30-minute documentary on the history of gay sociality (“Paradise,” 2023) with Minki Hong and a feature-length piece on South Korea’s first male fashion designer, André Kim (1935–2010), and his relationship to post-1945 Hawaiʻi. Centering nonnormative dimensions of capitalist development in (post)authoritarian times, these interdisciplinary projects explore the ideological functions and subcultural dynamics of same-sex sexuality and gender variance in connection to middlebrow journalism and urban entertainment, anticommunist modes of citizenship and heteropatriarchal labor, in addition to bodily autonomy and personal health in the contexts of the global sexual revolution, gender confirmation and intersex struggles, and ongoing stigma against sexually transmitted diseases. Samples of this new research appear in his edited volume, Queer Korea (Durham: Duke University Press, 2020; Korean translation, 2023) and as “The AIDS Panic and ‘Disease Boundaries in Late-Authoritarian South Korea” (East-West Center Research Speaker Series, August 21, 2024). Another book—tentatively entitled Imperial Collisions: Japanese and Western Gay Sex Tourisms in Post-Colonial/Hot War Asia-Pacific (research in progress), a sample of which was published in The Transgender Studies Reader, Volume 2 (Routledge, 2013)—will examine how pre-World War II histories of empire and militarism informed articulations of virile masculinity and practices of gay/transgender sex tourism in postwar Japan and across its former empire as well as in relation to other competing “sex-empires,” including that of the US.

Dr. Henry has received two Fulbright grants (Kyoto University, 2004–2005; Hanyang and Ewha Womans Universities, 2013), two fellowships from the Korea Foundation (Seoul National University, 2003–2004; Harvard University, 2008–2009), and separate fellowships from the Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies (Seoul National University, 2019) and the East-West Center (University of Hawaiʻi, 2024). At UCSD, he is an affiliate faculty member of Critical Gender Studies, Science Studies, Film Studies, and Japanese Studies. From 2013 until 2018, Dr. Henry served as the inaugural director of Transnational Korean Studies (TKS), the recipient of a $600,000 grant from the Academy of Korean Studies as a Core University Program for Korean Studies. Fluent in English, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean, with some French, Dr. Henry has taught courses in Fort Collins (Colorado), San Diego (California), Seoul (South Korea), Paris (France), San Jose (Costa Rica), and Berlin (Germany). He has offered classroom, academic, and public lectures across the world, and is dedicated to establishing engaged collaborations with students, scholars, activists, artists, and other citizens seeking to make their own histories.

Publications


Single-Authored Books

  • Assimilating Seoul: Japanese Rule and the Politics of Public Space in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, Asia-Pacific Modern Series #12, hardcover 2014, paperback 2016; Korean translation: San ch’ŏrŏm, 2020 and Winner of Sejong Prize in History, Geography, and Tourism) 
  • Profits of Queerness: Media, Biomedicine, and Citizenship in Authoritarian South Korea, 1950–1980 (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2026)
  • Bodies of Excess: Sex Tourism, the AIDS Crisis, and Transgender Advocacy in Globalizing South Korea, 1980–1995 (writing in progress)
  • Imperial Collisions: Japanese and Western Gay Sex Tourisms in Post-Colonial/Hot War Asia-Pacific (research in progress)

 

Edited Volumes/Special Issues

  • Queer Korea (Durham: Duke University Press, Perverse Modernities Series, 2020; Korean translation: San ch’ŏrŏm, 2023)
  • “Queer/Korean Studies as Critique: A Provocation,” Korea Journal vol., 58, no. 2 (Summer 2018)
  • “Trans-in-Asia, Asia-in-Trans: An Introduction,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly vol. 5, no. 3 (August 2018): 298–310 [coedited with Howard Chiang and Helen Hok-Sze Leung]

Films

  •  “Paradise” (2023); Producer: Todd A. Henry; Director: Minki Hong 30-minute documentary on gay movie house cruising and male homosexual life in 1970s–1990s South Korea (to purchase a special edition DVD copy of the film with a learning/teaching guide and related maps, email Dr. Henry at tahenry@ucsd.edu)

2023-2026 Jury Screenings: Jeonju International Film Festival, Korea Queer Film Festival, Korea International Short Film Festival, Cinema Diverse: Palm Springs LGBTQ Film Festival, San Diego Asian Film Festival, Boston LGBTQ+ Film Festival, Stockholm City Festival, Stamped Film Festival [Pensacola], Make the Road: Queer East Asia, Generations Connect [Tokyo], Reelout Queer Film Festival [Kingston, Canada], Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival (postponed), Association for Asian Studies 2024 Film Exposition, and Norwich Queer International Festival of Film [UK] Jeonju International Film Festival, Korea Queer Film Festival, Korea International Short Film Festival, Cinema Diverse: Palm Springs LGBTQ Film Festival, San Diego Asian Film Festival, Boston LGBTQ+ Film Festival, Stockholm City Festival, Stamped Film Festival [Pensacola], Make the Road: Queer East Asia, Generations Connect [Tokyo], Reelout Queer Film Festival [Kingston, Canada], Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival (postponed), Association for Asian Studies Film Exposition, Norwich Queer International Festival of Film [UK], Queer Expression Film Fest, Circa: Queer Histories Festival, Orchid International Queer Itinerant Festival ROSARITO, Festival de Largos y Cortos de Santiago, ALT* LGBT+ Documentary Festival, Outfest Perú, Maracay International Film & Video Festival, and Ciudad de México International Film Festival 

 

Awards: Documentary Grand Prize (27th Korean Urban Film Festival), Special Award (Korea International Short Film Festival), Honorable Mention (Merced Queer Film Festival and LA Underground Film Forum), and E-Flux Film Award (Shortlist)

**See also “Gay and Queer Map of Authoritarian-era Seoul (1950–1990)” version 1.0 [Published for Community Screening of “Paradise,” December 2022]

Feature-length documentary on South Korea’s first male fashion designer, André Kim (1935–2010), and his relationship to multi-ethnic communities of post-1945 Hawaiʻi (Initial funding provided by the Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts, UCSD)

Articles

  • “Sanitizing Empire: Japanese Articulations of Korean Otherness and the Construction of Early Colonial Seoul, 1905–19,” Journal of Asian Studies vol. 64, no. 3 (August 2005): 639–675; Reprinted in Hyung-Gu Lynn (ed.), Critical Readings on the Colonial Period of Korea 1910–1945, Volume 2 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012): 615–661
  • “Respatializing Chosŏn’s Royal Capital: The Politics of Japanese Urban Reforms in Early Colonial Seoul, 1905–19” in Timothy Tangherlini and Sallie Yea (eds.), Sitings: Critical Approaches to Korean Geography (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2007): 15–38
  • “Celebrating Empire, Fighting War: The 1940 Exposition in Late Colonial Korea” (in Korean), Asea yŏn’gu (The Journal of Asiatic Studies, Korea University), vol. 51, no. 4 (Winter 2008): 72–112
  • “Assimilation’s Racializing Sensibilities: Colonized Koreans as Yobos and the ‘Yobo-ization’ of Expatriate Japanese,” Positions: Asia Critique vol. 21, no. 1 (Winter 2013): 11–49; Reprinted in Christopher P. Hanscom and Dennis Washburn (eds.), The Affect of Difference: Representation of Race in East Asian Empire (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2016): 81–107
  • “Between Surveillance and Liberation: The Lives of Cross-Dressed Male Sex Workers in Early Postwar Japan” in Susan Stryker and Aren Aizura (eds.), The Transgender Studies Reader, Volume 2 (London and New York: Routledge, 2013): 399–413
  • “Showcase Thoroughfares, Wretched Alleys: The Uneven Development of Colonial Seoul (Keijō)” in Sugimoto Fumiko, Cary Karacas, and Kären Wigen (eds.), Cartographic Japan (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2016): 170–173
  • “Ch’anggyŏng Garden as Neo-Colonial Space: Spectacles of Anti-Communist Militarism and Industrial Development in Early South(ern) Korea,” Journal of Korean Studies vol. 21, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 7–44; Reprinted in Mikyoung Kim (ed.), Korean Memories and Psycho-historical Fragmentation (Basingstoke [England] and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019): 23–50
  • “Neuropsychiatry as Area Studies: Han Tong-se (1930–1973) and the Diagnostics of Gender/Sexual ‘Deviance’ in Cold War South Korea,” Humanities Futures, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute (Duke University), 2017 
  • “In This Issue—Queer/Korean Studies as Critique: A Provocation,” Korea Journal vol. 58, no. 2 (Summer 2018): 5–26 [single-edited special issue]
  • “Trans-in-Asia, Asia-in-Trans: An Introduction,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly vol, 5, no. 3 (August 2018): 298–310 [co-edited special issue]
  • “Queer Korea: Toward a Field of Engagement,” in Todd A. Henry (ed.), Queer Korea (Durham: Duke University Press, Perverse Modernities Series, 2020): 1–52
  • “Queer Lives as Cautionary Tales: Female Same-Sex Weddings in the Hetero-Patriarchal Imagination of Authoritarian South Korea,” in Todd A. Henry (ed.), Queer Korea (Durham: Duke University Press, Perverse Modernities Series, 2020): 205–259
  • “Hetero-Authoritarianism as Everyday Disaster: Anatomical Conformity and its ‘Queer’ Challenges in Postwar South Korea,” in Youna Kim (ed.), Gender, Sexuality and South Korea (Routledge: London and New York, 2026)
  • “From Chongno to It’aewŏn (via Ŭlchiro): Homo-Spatiality and Gender Nonconforming Wo/men in Authoritarian-Era Seoul” [in preparation]
  • “Queering the Straits: Japanese-South Korean Interactions in the Making of Post-Colonial Gay Subcultures” [in preparation]
  • “A Documentary Impulse: The Historical Imagination of Queer Films in Contemporary South Korea” [in preparation]

 

Book Reviews

  • Ann Stoler, Carole McGranahan, and Peter Perdue (eds.), Imperial Formations (Santa Fe, N.M.: School for Advanced Research Press; Oxford [U.K.]: James Currey, 2007) in The Journal of World History vol. 21, no. 2 (June 2010): 349–353
  • Mark E. Caprio, Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009) in Pacific Affairs vol. 83, no. 4 (December 2010): 802–804
  • E. Taylor Atkins, Primitive Selves: Koreana in the Japanese Colonial Gaze, 1910–1945 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2010) in Korean Studies no. 35 (2012): 352–357
  • Jun Uchida, Brokers of Empire: Japanese Settler Colonialism in Korea, 1876–1945 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011) in The Journal of Korean Studies vol. 18, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 151–154
  • Richard S. Kim, The Quest for Statehood: Korean Immigrant Nationalism and U.S. Sovereignty, 1905–45 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011) in The American Historical Review vol. 118, no. 2 (Spring 2013): 490–491
  • Masuda Hajimu, Cold War Crucible: The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2015) in Pacific Historical Review vol. 85, no. 3 (August 2016): 466–467
  • Heonik Kwon, After the Korean War: An Intimate History (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020) in European Journal of Korean Studies vol. 20, no. 1 (Autumn 2020): 208–212
  • Celeste L. Arrington and Patricia Goedde (eds.), Rights Claiming in South Korea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021) in Pacific Affairs vol. 95. no. 2 (June 2022): 369–371
  • Se-mi Oh, City of Sentiments: A History of Seoul in the Age of Colonialism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2023) in The Journal of Japanese Studies vol. 50, no. 2 (Summer 2024): 472–475
  • Ju Hui Judy Han, Queer Throughlines: Spaces of Queer Activism in South Korea and the Korean Diaspora (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, Global Queer Asias, 2025) in Korea Journal vol. 6, no. 2 (Fall 2026): 208–212
  • Hannah Shepherd, The Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise and Fall of an Imperial Region (Berkeley: University of California Press, Asia Pacific Modern, 2025) in The Journal of Japanese Studies vol. 53, no. 1

 

Translations

  • “Inabata Katsutaro (1862–1947) and Non-Governmental Economic Diplomacy between Japan and Turkey” by Kimura Masato in Selcuk Esenbel and Inaba Chiharu (eds.), The Rising Sun from Japanese and the Turkish Crescent: New Perspectives on the History of Japanese-Turkish Relations (Istanbul: Bogazici University Press, 2003): 166–194
  • “Lifestyles in the Gay Bars” by Kabiya Kazuhiko [originally published in Amatoria (Studies in sexual customs) June-August 1955] in Mark McLelland, Katsuhiko Suganuma, and James Walker (eds.), Queer Voices from Japan: First Person Narratives from Japan’s Sexual Minorities (Lanham: Lexington Press, 2007): 105–138
  • “Chosŏn’s Adoption of International Law and its Conflicts with China in the 1880s” by Yi Tae-jin in Dynamics of Confucianism and Modernization in Korean History (Ithaca: Cornell University East Asia Series, 2007): 139–164

Courses Taught

  • HILD 12: Twentieth-Century East Asia
  • HIEA 144: Topics in East Asian History (Queer Korea); South Korea in the Global 1980s
  • HIEA 150: Modern Korea, 1800–1945
  • HIEA 151: The Two Koreas, 1945–Present
  • HIEA 152: Histories and Cultures of the Korean Diaspora
  • HIEA 153: Social and Cultural History of Twentieth-Century Korea (The US and Americans in Modern Korea)
  • HIEA 154: Korean History through Film
  • HIEA 180/280: Topics in Modern Korean History (Touring Seoul; Cities and their Subcultures)
  • HITO 165/265: Topics in LGBT History (Queer Formations and the Global Sexual Revolution; Queer Asia-Pacific)
  • CGS 104: Advanced Topics in Comparative Perspectives (Queer in East Asia: History, Culture, and Community; Queer Contact Zones in Asian, Intra-Asian, and Asian American Studies) 
  • HIGR 207: Nationalism, Colonialism and Race
  • HIGR 212: Historical Scholarship on Modern East Asian History (“Queering” East Asian Studies, “Provincializing” Queer Studies)
  • HIGR 214: Historical Scholarship on Modern Korean History (Gender/Sexuality; Cold War “Korea” as Transnational History; Authoritarian Development in Contemporary South Korea; Colonial Modernity and Beyond)
  • HIGR 219A-B. Research Seminar in Modern Korean History (Marginality)
  • HIGR 282: Topics in Global History (Gender, Labor, and Militarism: HIV/AIDS as Global and Transnational History)

Media Appearances