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Bonnie Yonbom Chung

Visiting Lecturer of English

Bio

Dr. Bonnie Yonbom Chung is a scholar of Asian American literature, transpacific cultures, sound studies, and the environmental humanities. Her manuscript-in-progress, The Asian Diaspora's Polyphonic Archive: Articulating the Islands of East Asia, analyzes a constellation of literary and sonic texts shaped by Cold War modernity and geopolitics from the 1940s to the present. Through comparative readings of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Asian American literature—including Richard E. Kim's The Martyred (1964), Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee (1982), Shawna Yang Ryan's Green Island (2016), and Min Jin Lee's Pachinko (2017)—the project shows how transnational and diasporic Asian figures complicate narratives of Anglophone assimilation by foregrounding island soundscapes.

Her work has appeared in Amerasia Journal, The Journal of Asian American Studies, MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the U.S., and Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, among others. Her book chapter, "Seoul’s Yeouido Island: Re-mapping the Shorelines," is also forthcoming in Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Korea (Duke University Press).

Dr. Chung is delighted to teach in the English Department and join the Marist community this fall. Beginning in September, she will appear regularly in Pages of the Diaspora, a recurring series for the Korean Service of Voice of America in which she discusses Korean American literature and transpacific culture. She will also engage in research at NYU's Asian/Pacific/American Institute as a Visiting Scholar.
 

Education

PhD, English Language and Literature, Cornell University
MA, English Language and Literature, Cornell University
MA, English Literature, Ewha Womans University, South Korea
BA, International Studies and English Literature, Ewha Womans University, South Korea

Research Interests/ Areas of Focus

cultural studies; sound and media; Asian American and transpacific literatures; postcolonial theory; global Anglophone critique; critical island studies; blue humanities

Selected Publications

"A Polyphonic Pacific Pact: Envisioning Archipelagic East Asia Through the Asian Diaspora’s Sonic Archive." Amerasia Journal, 50.2 (2025): 196-213. https://doi.org/10.1080/00447471.2025.2517834

"The Tales of Two Peninsulas: Remaking National Myth and Remapping the US Military Base Network in Fox Girl (2002) and Soucouyant (2007)." Journal of Asian American Studies, 27. 2 (2024): 149-171. https://doi.org/10.1353/jaas.2024.a934960 

"The Motley Flow of Student Protests in Dictee and Do Not Say We Have Nothing: Envisioning Asian Diasporic Assemblages." MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, 48. 2 (2023): 79-98. https://doi.org/10.1093/melus/mlad048

"Indentured History in Lore—Theorizing the Communal Discourse Archive." Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 64.4 (2023): 635-646. https://doi.org/10.1080/00111619.2022.2071145

Selected Presentations

"A Polyphonic 'Pacific Pact': Envisioning Archipelagic East Asia." Critical Island Studies Conference: An Archipelagic Turn and the Other Asias—Planetary Care in Literature, Culture, Politics. Jeju National University, South Korea, August 2025.

"The Two Koreas at the 'End of History.'" Remapping the Korean Diaspora: Symposium by the Korean Studies University Seminar. Columbia University, NY, March 2025. 

"The Peninsular Form, Pacific Ocean, and Polyphonic Saga in Offerings (2019) and Pachinko (2017)." Modern Language Association (MLA). Philadelphia, PA, January 2024.

"The Tales of Two Peninsulas: Reimagining Military Prostitution through Fox Girl (2002) and Soucouyant (2007)." American Studies Association (ASA) Session. New Orleans, LA, November 2022. 

"Navigating the Discursive Space of Paradise, Lantanacamara: The Workings of Orality and Opacity in Shani Mootoo's Cereus Blooms at Night (1996)." Modern Language Association (MLA). Seattle, WA, January 2020. 

"Ungovernable Speech Acts: Within and Beyond the Underworld in Min Jin Lee's Pachinko (2017)." Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) Conference. Madison, WI, April 2019. 

"The Wandering Footsteps of a Vagabond in the City: Exploring the Palpable Spaces Afforded by the Elliptical Speech Acts in Jean Rhys's Good Morning, Midnight (1938)." American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA). Washington DC, March 2019. 
 

Awards and Honors

Zhu Family Fellowship in the Humanities, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University, 2024

Gertrude Spencer Teaching Award, John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, Cornell University, 2022
 

Media Links

Pages of the Diaspora (Voice of America Korean Service, Washington, D.C.) — Link forthcoming. 

Contact Information

Academic School

School of Liberal Arts