Conferences and Events

Myself (left) with co-organizer Professor Sey Kim of the second-annual Art for Change event series at Incheon Global Campus in 2022. The 2022 Art for Change event series included a graffiti-painting workshop, a drag show, and other events on campus related to art and social justice.

Events Organized:

A public history lecture series hosted by the Department of History at the University of Utah’s Asia Campus via Zoom, featuring speakers on the promises and perils of Public History as Entertainment Media (incl. TV, films, social media, & video/board games).

  • Organizer, “Book/Binding,” University of Utah         Nov 2022

A book arts meets gender studies workshop with zinemaker Scott Morris of Magpie Zines, in which students stitch their own zine on gender-neutral clothing.

  • Organizer, “Trans Pride in Korea: Q&A with Jungle,” University of Utah     May 31, 2022

This LGBTQ History Month Kickoff Even centers invited speaker Jungle discussing her experiences as a trans woman within a larger discussion of trans rights, issues, and pride in Korea.

Sponsored by the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Fund at the University of Utah Asia Campus

  • Organizer, “Q&A with Jamila Benson,” University of Utah     May 17, 2022

Invited speaker Jamila Benson discussing her experiences blending cultural commentary, activism, and social media savvy as a Black product designer in Korea

  • Co-Organizer, “Art for Change,” Incheon Global Campus, Korea           May 10-13, 2022

Second annual event series sponsored by the University of Utah Asia Campus featuring artist-led workshops on art and social justice, including graffiti, printmaking, illustrations, and an open mic event. 

  • Organizer, “Hybrid Korea: Q&A with The Halfie Project,” Univ. of Utah     May 3, 2022

Invited speaker panel and discussion on the transnational Korean experience, including Korean adoptees and hybrid Koreans, with hosts Becky White and Cedric Stout of YouTube vlog and podcast The Halfie Project

Sponsored by the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Fund at the University of Utah Asia Campus

  • Organizer, “Gender and Pleasure,” University of Utah   April 21, 2022

Invited speaker Q&A with professor Dr. Sherri Slick on the politics of pleasure in Korea

  • Organizer, “Q&A with Taylor T,” University of Utah   April 15, 2022

Invited speaker Taylor Tak discussing her experiences as a plus-size model and body activist in Korea as part of our unit on the history of fat shaming and makeup in US women’s history

  • Organizer, “Beyond the Gender Binary,” University of Utah     Feb 9, 2022

Invited speaker panel and discussion on queer experiences in Korea during Covid

Sponsored by the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Fund at the University of Utah Asia Campus

  • Co-Organizer, “Art for Change,” Incheon Global Campus, Korea May/June 2021

Sponsored by George Mason University, Korea and University of Utah, Asia Campus         

Invited Speaker Panel and Discussion on artistic representations of Korean sex slaves during Japanese colonialism, and campus-wide art gallery on social justice-themed art

  • Organizer, “Gender, Race, and Place: Intersectional Perspectives”   Nov. 16, 2020

Invited Speaker Panel by and about the experiences of women of color in Korea and public discussion at University of Utah, Asia Campus

  • Organizer, “Annual Project Symposium,” University of Utah, Asia Campus – December 6, 2019

First Annual Student Research and Arts Symposium and Awards Competition, Korea; More information at: https://uacsymposium.wordpress.com/

Announcing the winners at the University of Utah’s first undergraduate research symposium at the Asia Campus in 2019. The second annual symposium will be held in May of 2022 at UAC.
  • Organizer, “Global Food: Local Perspectives,” Purdue University –  Oct. 22, 2015

Featuring a roundtable and food tasting by local chefs of international cuisine paired with keynote Dr. Simone Cinotto, University of Gastronomic Sciences, Italy

Sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and the School of Interdisciplinary Studies  

  • Organizer, “Sexual Violence on College Campuses,” Purdue University – Dec. 2, 2014

Featuring an interactive seminar with undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and administrators from Purdue University along with a keynote by Dr. Stephanie Gilmore

Sponsored by the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and the American Studies Program 

  • Chair, Organizing Committee, “Academics IRL: Taking Scholarship out of the Ivory Tower”  – Apr. 17-19, 2013

38th Annual Graduate Conference, American Studies Program, Purdue University, Featuring graduate student and faculty research panels in American Studies as well as three interdisciplinary keynote speakers


Jaime Hough (left) and Kera Lovell (right) presenting their collaborative research at Purdue University, titled, “Beyond Interdisciplinarity: Social Media and the New University”

Conference Presentations:

Accepted, Upcoming:

4th World Congress of Environmental History (Oulu, Finland)           08/2024

Roundtable: Problems of Place: Environmental History Network

Completed:

  • National Council on Public History Annual Meeting – April 2024

Panel Chair and Presenter: Gender and Sexuality in Public History

  • American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting – April 2024

Panel Chair and Presenter: Experiential Learning in Environmental History: Diversity from Margin to Center

  • American Studies Association Annual Meeting (Accepted) – November 2023

Panel: “Visual Culture Caucus: What Solidarity Looks Like in Public”

Paper Title: “Masculinity and Race in the Visual Culture of the People’s Park Movement, 1967 to Today”

  • Organization of American Historians – April 2023

Roundtable organizer and Panelist, “Games, Marvel, and Graphic Narrative Histories: Teaching History Beyond the Textbook and Monograph”

  • National Council on Public History – April 2023

Panel organizer, “Food and the Senses: Embodied Experiences as Public History”

Paper title: “Teaching Transnational Food Studies through Recipe Reenactments, from Indiana and Hawai’i to South Korea”

  • Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association – April 2023

Paper title, “The Sensory Experience of People’s Park Protests, 1967-1975

  • Organization of American Historians – March 2023

Panelist, “Encampments, Mobility, and Racialized Space in the 20th C. Latinx West”

Paper title, “From Chicano Park to Poor People’s Park: Latinx Identity in Protest Encampments against Urban Renewal” Presentation Slides

  • American Studies Association of Turkey, Trans*America Conference – 11/2022

Paper title, “Queer Design as Protest: The Ephemerality of Shape-Shifting Design in the People’s Park Protest Movement, 1968-1978”

  • Royal Geography Society (RGS)-IBG Annual International Conference – 08/2022

Panelist, “Historical Geographies of Sensation, 1800-present”

Paper title, “The Sensory Experience of People’s Park Protests, 1967-1975”

  • National Council for Public History Annual Meeting – 05/2022

Panelist, “Telling the Stories of AAPI Communities in the Aftermath of COVID-fueled Xenophobia”

  • Architecture, Media, and Politics Society (AMPS) Research Conference – 04/2022

Co-Panelist, “Food Studies as Experiential Learning”

  • NASPA: Student Affairs in Higher Education International Symposium – 03/2021

Co-Presented Paper Title, “Global Programming and Transnational Perspectives on Race, Gender, and Place in a Korean Context”

  • National Council for Public History Annual Meeting – 03/2020

Panelist, “Podcasting as Public History” speaking on my website TeachingWithPodcasts.com 

*Prevented from presenting because international borders between South Korea and the US closed due to Corona

  • Organization of American Historians Annual Conference – 04/2020

Roundtable Organizer & Chair, “Critical Pedagogy & Experiential Learning: Experiments in Active Learning in the History Classroom”

Paper Title, “Teaching History with Recipe Reenactments”

  • American Studies Association Annual Conference – 11/2019

Panel Organizer, “Critical Approaches to American Food Studies in Research and Teaching”

Paper Title, “Teaching American Studies through the Lens of Food: Family Recipes at Honolulu Community College”

Roundtable Participant: “Towards Open Access for All: Theory, Methods, Practice”

  • Korean American Studies Association Annual Meeting – 09/2019

Paper Title: “Designing Parks for the People: Coalition and Divide within Vietnam Era Spatial Protests”

  • Association for the Study of Food and Society – 06/2019

Paper Title: “From People’s Stews to Going Whole Hog: Deconstructing Wilderness and Freedom in the Food Practices of People’s Park Protests”

  • American Studies Association – 11/2018 –

Paper Title: “Liberating the City and Visualizing Consensus: Postwar People’s Parks and the Promises and Perils of Designing Coalitional Spaces”

Society for American City and Regional Planning History – 10/2017 –

Paper Title: “Cartographies of Resistance: Mapping Power and Identity in the Interdisciplinary Classroom”

  • Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders, and Sexualities – 6/2017

Plenary Session Organizer, “Beyond Ecofeminism: Women and their Environments”

Paper Title, “The Rape of Mother Earth: Gender, Race, and Nature in Environmental Justice Protest”

Roundtable Participant: “The Position of Liberal Arts Faculty in Community Colleges: Canaries in the Coalmine?

  • American Studies Association Annual Conference – 11/ 2016

Paper Title: “(Activist) Regeneration Through Violence: The Occupation of Green Space as a Postwar Protest Tactic”

  • Urban History Association Annual Conference – 10/ 2016

Panel Organizer, “Shades of the Green Economy: Sustainability and the Re-Imagining of Post-Industrial Landscapes in a Consumer Society”

Paper Title, “Radical Environmentalism: Labor, Consumption, & the Alternative Economics of Guerrilla Gardens”

  • American Society for Environmental History – 4/2016

Paper Title: “Tracing the Transnational History of Environmental Direct Actions, from Berkeley to Johannesburg”

  • Society for American City and Regional Planning History – 11/2015

Paper Title: “Radical Manifest Destiny: The Image and Impact of Berkeley’s People’s Park on a Transnational Environmental Justice Movement”

  • Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders, and Sexualities – 5/ 2014

Paper Title: “Parallels of Purity and Protest: Young White Women’s Sexuality in the Making of the New Left (1965-1978) and New Right (1998-2013),” co-presented with Jaime Hough

  • Organization of American Historians Annual Conference – 4/2014

Panel Organizer, “Crossing Borders in Second Wave Feminism”

Paper Title, “‘Sisters of the World’: The Cultural Borders of Second Wave Consciousness Raising”

  • Symposium – “A Revolutionary Moment: Women’s Liberation in the Late 1960s and Early 1970s” – 3/2014

Dept. of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Boston University

Paper Title: “Girls Are Equal Too: High School Activism and the Second Wave Women’s Movement”

  • Social Science History Association Annual Conference – 11/2013

Panel Organizer, “Complicating Sisterhood: The Power of Crossing Borders in Women’s Liberation”

Paper Title, “Power and Difference in the Evolution of Feminist Consciousness-Raising Groups”

  • National Women’s Studies Association Annual Conference  – 11/2013

Paper Title: “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Gender, Race, and Ability in Freaks (1932)”

  • History Graduate Student Association Conference – 3/2013

Paper Title: “The Changing Face of American Bodies: Teaching HIST 152 through the Lens of the Body”

  • Annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Symposium – 4/2013

Paper Title: “Beyond Interdisciplinarity: Social Media and the New University,” co-presented with Jaime Hough

  •  National Popular Culture/American Culture Annual Conference – 4/2011

Paper Title: “Kissing Mick Jagger: Debating Homosexuality and Homophobia in Rolling Stone’s Men’s Issue, 1975”

  • Symposium – American Studies Graduate Research Symposium – 4/2011

Paper Title: “Men on the Ropes: The Successes and Failures of Men’s Consciousness Raising in Rolling Stone, 1975”

  • Southern Regional Popular Culture/American Culture Association – 10/2010

Paper Title: “‘The Men’s Issue’: Male Consciousness Raising in Rolling Stone, 1975”

  • National Pop Culture/American Culture Association Conference – 4/2010

Paper Title:Reading Between the Lines: Women’s Liberation and the ‘Hidden Injuries of Sex’ in Rolling Stone, 1975”

  • National Association of Communication Centers Conference – 3/2009

Paper Title: “Gender and Communication: Empowering Women Through Speaking”


Invited Lectures:

April 28, 2023 – Invited Speaker, “The People’s Archive: Using Oral History Interviews to Create Conversations about Gender and Sexuality,” Hosted by the iSchool (Library and Information Sciences) at the University of Maryland

November 22, 2022 – Invited Speaker, “Experiential Learning and Critical Thinking: Global Food Studies and US History at the University Level in Korea,” hosted by the Global Education Institute at Duksung University, South Korea

April 26, 2022 – Invited Speaker, “Gender Equality Forum,” hosted by the Political Action Club, Chadwick International, South Korea

March 23, 2022 – Roundtable Participant, “Feminism in Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portraits: UAC’s 2nd Annual Art and Music Matinee,” University of Utah’s Asia Campus

October 15, 2020 – Invited Symposium Speaker, “The People’s Park,” at The Danky/Pawley Symposium in Print Culture History: Celebrating a Decade of Danky Fellowships, Wisconsin Historical Society

October 14, 2020 – Campus-Wide Lecture “Taboo Topics: People’s Parks” as part of their series Taboo Topics, Indiana State University, Office of Sustainability

November 15, 2019 – Invited Speaker, “Symbolism & Performance in the American Counterculture,” Class: ENG 2017: Race and Identity in American Memory with Professor Yeonhaun Kang, Sungkyunkwan University

October 17, 2019 – Campus-Wide Roundtable: “Mental Health & Wellness Week, Q&A,” University of Utah, Asia Campus

May 15, 2019 – Campus-Wide Lecture, “The Politics and Power of Pride,” University of Utah, Asia Campus

April 26, 2019 – Campus-Wide Panel Discussion: “Let’s Talk about Sex Q&A,” University of Utah, Asia Campus

November 18, 2018 – Campus-Wide Panel Discussion: “Birth Rates in Korea,” University of Utah, Asia Campus

October 15, 2015 – Award Reception: Wisconsin Historical Society, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI

Title: “James P. Danky Fellowship Lecture: Radical Manifest Destiny: Urban Renewal, Colonialism, and Transnational American Identity in the Urban Spatial Politics of the Postwar Left”

August 13, 2015 –Award Reception: Michigan Tech University’s Van Pelt and Opie Library, Houghton, MI

Title: “People’s Parks: Tracing Radical Environmental Activism from Berkeley to Michigan”