Peter D. HERSHOCK is Director of the Asian Studies Development Program and Education Specialist at the East-West Center in Honolulu, and holds a Ph.D. in Asian and Comparative Philosophy from the University of Hawai‘i. His philosophical work makes use of Buddhist conceptual resources to address contemporary issues of global concern. He has authored or edited more than a dozen books on Buddhism, Asian philosophy and contemporary issues, including: Liberating Intimacy: Enlightenment and Social Virtuosity in Ch’an Buddhism (1996); Reinventing the Wheel: A Buddhist Response to the Information Age (1999); Chan Buddhism (2005); Buddhism in the Public Sphere: Reorienting Global Interdependence (2006); Changing Education: Leadership, Innovation and Development in a Globalizing Asia Pacific (edited, 2007); Educations and their Purposes: A Conversation among Cultures (edited, 2008); Valuing Diversity: Buddhist Reflection on Realizing a More Equitable Global Future (2012); Public Zen, Personal Zen: A Buddhist Introduction (2014); Value and Values: Economics and Justice in an Age of Global Interdependence (edited, 2015); and Philosophies of Place: An Intercultural Conversation (forthcoming).

Edward J. SHULTZ is professor emeritus at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He first came to Korea as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1966, after graduating from Union College in New York, and lived in Pusan. As a graduate student he was an East-West Center grantee as well as a Fulbright pre-doctoral scholar. After receiving his Phd in 1976 from the University of Hawaii, he taught at the University of Hawaii until he retired in August 1213. At Hawaii he served as the director of the Center for Korean Studies and later as the dean of the School of Pacific and Asian Studies. In the spring of 2015 he served as interim chancellor of Hawaii Tokai International College. His major area of research is Koryǒ history with a special interest in social, institutional, and political history. His recent publications include Generals and Scholars in Medieval Korea, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press (a Korean translation appeared in 2014) and he edited and helped translate the The Koguryǒ Annals of the Samguk sagi and with Hugh H.W. Kang translated The Silla Annals of the Samguk sagi. Yonsei University in 2014 published a translation of the middle section of the Koryǒsa chǒryo which was also completed by Shultz and Kang.

Cheehyung Harrison KIM is assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. His research and teaching interests include socialism, North Korea, everyday life, and industrialism. His book, Heroes and Toilers: Work as Life in Postwar North Korea, 1953-1961, forthcoming from Columbia University Press, is about the experience of factory workers in postwar North Korea and the transnational condition of industrialism.

Kyung Hyun KIM is Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures and serves as the Director of Center for Critical Korean Studies at the University of California, Irvine. He is author of Virtual Hallyu: Korean Cinema of the Global Era (2011) and The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema (2004). He is also the coeditor of The Korean Popular Culture Reader (2014)—all of the books published by Duke University Press. He has published a Korean-language novel entitled In Search of Lost G (Ireo beorin G-rul chajaso) in 2014.

Yung Hee KIM, Professor of Korean Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, UHM, received her Ph.D. in Asian Studies from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Before joining the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, she taught in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. Professor Kim served as the Director of Korean Studies, UHM, 2010-2013. Her major areas of research focus on modern/contemporary Korean women writers, modern Korean fiction, and colonial intellectuals. Professor Kim’s publications include Gendered Landscapes: Short Fiction by Modern and Contemporary Korean Women Novelists (Ithaca, New York: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 2017); “In Quest of Modern Womanhood: Sinyŏja, A Feminist Journal in Colonial Korea,” Korean Studies v. 37 (2013): 44-78; and Questioning Minds: Short Stories by Modern Korean Women Writers (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2010). Professor Kim also co-authored a textbook, Readings in Modern Korean Literature (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004; reprint in 2007).

Byong Wong LEE received his PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of Washington in 1974 and his MA in Ethnomusicology from the same school in 1971. Prior to coming to the US in 1967, he attended the Graduate School of Seoul National University, majoring in Korean Music Theory, and received a B.A. in Korean Music Theory from Seoul National University in 1964. His publications include: the entire entry for Korea in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 6th edition; Buddhist Music of Korea (1987); Styles and Esthetics in Korean Traditional Music (1977); and numerous articles and edited works on Korean music.

In 2001, Dr. Lee authored, coordinated, and served as the main lecturer for the month-long “Workshop on Korean Music for Overseas Musicologists,” co-sponsored by the Korea Foundation and the National Gukak Center. He has twice been a Fulbright scholar in Korea (1972–73 and 1980–81), and was also a visiting professor at the Academy of Korean Studies (1996–98). He served as the first President of the Association for Korean Music Research (AKMR) in 1995–96 and as the Secretary-General for the 26th International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) in 1980–81 and for the First International Conference on Korean Studies in 1994. In 1990 he was also invited to UNESCO’s “Integral Study of the Silk Road Maritime Route Expeditions” as a senior scholar.

Sang-Hyop LEE is Professor in the Department of Economics and Director of Center for Korean Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the East-West Center. He is also the Asian teams coordinator of the National Transfer Accounts project. His studies focus on population aging and social welfare issues. In particular, he has investigated the linkage between population aging and the labor market issues, with particular emphasis on Asian economies. Given its empirical and applied nature, a substantial portion of his research involves estimation of economic models using data sets.

He has published numerous articles including 11 edited books focusing issues on these research topics. His recent edited books include Aging, Economic Growth, and Old-Age Security in Asia (2011, Edward Elgar), Inequality, Inclusive Growth, and Fiscal Policy in Asia (2015, Routledge), Social Policies in an Age of Austerity (2015, Edward Elgar), and the Demographic Dividend and Population Aging in Asia and the Pacific (2016, special issue of the Journal of the Economics of Ageing).

Jin Y. PARK is Professor of Philosophy and Religion and Founding Director of Asian Studies Program at American University. Park specializes in East Asian Buddhism (especially Zen and Huayan Buddhism), postmodernism, deconstruction, Buddhist ethics, Buddhist philosophy of religion, Buddhist-postmodern comparative philosophy, and modern East Asian philosophy. Park’s research in Buddhism focuses on the Zen and Huayan schools of East Asian Buddhism on language, violence, and ethics. In her comparative study, Park reads Zen and Huayan Buddhism together with postmodern thought in Continental philosophy, with a special focus on Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction. Park’s research on modern East Asian philosophy examines the dawn of philosophy in East Asia and the East-West encounter in this context. Her publications include Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iryŏp (2017), Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun (2014) and Buddhism and Postmodernity: Zen, Huayan, and the Possibility of Buddhist-Postmodern Ethics (2008). Park is also the editor of volumes: Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism (2010). Comparative Political Theory and Cross-Cultural Philosophy (2009), and Merleau- Ponty and Buddhism (co-edited, 2009), Buddhisms and Deconstructions (2006).

Maya STILLER is assistant professor of Korean art and visual culture at the University of Kansas and currently a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Department of Art History and Architecture. Her research focuses on the art and visual culture of Chosŏn period (1392-1910) Korea. Maya Stiller is currently completing a book manuscript entitled The Making of Place: Cultural Elites and Kŭmgangsan in Pre-Modern Korea, which discusses the development of a sacred mountain from a Buddhist pilgrimage site to a symbol of Korean cultural identity. Her most recent article, “The Politics of Commemoration: Patronage of Monk-General Shrines in Late Chosŏn Korea,” was published in the Journal of Asian Studies. An article entitled "Amitābha Triads Concealed in Craggy Cliffs: An Analysis of Sculpture Burial in Fourteenth/Fifteenth Century Korea" is scheduled for publication in Cahiers d’Extreme-Asie in December 2018. Maya Stiller has also contributed to the Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (editors: Robert E. Buswell and Donald S. Lopez) published in 2014. Her research projects have received support from Harvard’s Korea Institute, the ACLS/Robert Ho Family Foundation and the Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies at Seoul National University.

Myungji YANG is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa. She earned her PhD in Sociology in 2012 and spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Korean Studies Institute, University of Southern California, in 2015-16. Her research interests include the political economy of development, class politics and social inequality, democracy and civil society, globalization, and East Asia. Her work on the urban middle class and democracy in South Korea has appeared in Sociological Inquiry, Critical Asian Studies, and Korea Observer. Her first book, From Miracle to Mirage: The Making and Unmaking of the Korean Middle Class, 1960-2015, is forthcoming from Cornell University Press. Capturing the emergence, reproduction, and fragmentation of the Korean middle class, it demonstrates how the seemingly successful state project of building a middle-class society contained the seeds of that society’s decline. It argues that the current fragility of the middle class was embedded in the very development strategies and speculative urbanism that led its rise in the first place. She is now working on a new project about conservative politics and activism in South Korea. She is interested in how the right wing has maintained its hegemonic power and how it has shaped the post-democratization trajectory in Korea.