Hong Kal is a postdoctoral Korean research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Research Center. She received her B.A. and M.F.A. from Seoul National University in Korea and M.A. and Ph.D. in History and Theory of Art and Architecture from State University of New York, Binghamton in 2003. Her dissertation, "The Presence of the Past: Exhibitions, Memories, and National Identities in Colonial and Postcolonial Japan and Korea," examined the politics of culture in the two countries and their intertwined historical relations across twentieth century. Her research has concentrated on the formation of colonial modernity and national identity in colonial expositions in Korea and the visual representation of historical memories of the past--colonialism and war--in independence, peace and war museums in contemporary Korea and Japan. She was the recipient of the Japan Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship (2001-02).