Associate Professor of History

Director, Asian Studies Program

Chong Eun Ahn is a historian of modern East Asia. She grew up in Seoul, South Korea. Majoring in British and American studies at Sogang University, she also gained familiarity with Asian and European history more broadly.  She was also engaged in critical study groups focusing on issues ranging from colonial legacies to the geopolitics of East Asia.  This engagement drove her to pursue graduate studies in the United States. She first obtained an M.A. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University, with a focus on ethnicity and nationalism in modern East Asia. She received Ph.D. in History at University of Washington. Her Ph.D. dissertation, “From Chaoxian ren to Chaoxian zu: Korean Identity under Japanese Empire and Chinese Nation State,” examines the identity formation of ethnic Koreans who were treated as colonial subjects in the Japanese empire and then categorized as ethnic minorities in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Her academic interests include East Asian history and culture, and issues surrounding colonialism, modernity, ethnicity, labor migrations, and empires.

Courses:

HIST 101 - World History up to 1500

HIST 103 - World History Since 1815

HIST 380 - Modern East Asia

HIST 383 - East Asian Civilization

HIST 398 - Gender and History in Modern Asia 

HIST 483/583 - Modern China

HIST 485/585 - Trauma, History, and Memory in East Asia

HIST 498/598 - History of the Korean Peninsula 

AST 350 - Korea Now

Recent Publications:

• Ahn, Chong Eun “Korean Chinese Civil War: Ethnic Korean Struggles in the War and the Birth of Chaoxian zu (Joseonjok in Korean),” Sogang Inmun Nonchong (Sogang Humanities), Vol. 53, Dec, 2018.

• Ahn, Chong Eun “Surviving the Second World War in Manchukuo: Memories of Korean Experiences of the War in Manchurian Farming Villages,” Journal of Modern Chinese History, Dec. 2017.

• Ahn, Chong Eun “Remembering the Dark Past: Stories of the Korean War and Korean Immigration in American Children’s Literature,” in Amos ed., (Mis)reading Different Cultures: Interpreting International Children’s Literature from Asia, Roman and Littlefield Publishers, Aug. 2018.

• Ahn, Chong Eun "Korean History from the Peripheries: Reading Dictée and The Underground Village" in Dippmann ed., Interdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching Korea in the Undergraduate Curriculum, SUNY Press. (under contract)

• Ahn, Chong Eun "A Feminist History of 'Comfort Women' in the Wartime Japanese Empire: Reading Feelings and Policies from the Traumatic Past," (tentative title) in Oxford Handbook of East Asian Gender History, Oxford Pres. (under contract)