Dafna Zur

Dafna Zur

Dafna Zur

  • Associate Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures

Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
521 Memorial Way
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 725-1893 (voice)

Biography

Dafna Zur teaches courses on Korean literature, cinema, and popular culture. Her book, Figuring Korean Futures: Children’s Literature in Modern Korea (Stanford University Press, October 2017), traces the affective investments and coded aspirations made possible by children’s literature in colonial and postcolonial Korea. She has published articles on North Korean science fiction, the Korean War in North and South Korean children’s literature, childhood in cinema, and Korean popular culture. Her translations have been published in wordwithoutborders.orgThe Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Short Stories, and the Asia Literary Review.

Dafna Zur received her PhD and MA in Asian Studies from the University of British Columbia, and a BA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In The News

Dafna Zur
News

Dafna Zur Awarded South Korea’s Order of Culture Merit

The award, the highest recognition bestowed by the government of the Republic of Korea, honors Zur for her contributions to promoting the Korean writing system, Hangeul.
cover link Dafna Zur Awarded South Korea’s Order of Culture Merit
Collage of Soo-Man Lee, SUHO, and Ban Ki-moon speaking at a podium
News

North Korea’s Geopolitics, South Korea’s Pop Culture Wave Take Center Stage at Korea Program’s 20th Anniversary Conference

The Korea Program at Stanford’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center marked its 20-year anniversary with a two-day conference that gathered eminent leaders from academia, government, and the K-pop industry, including former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and global star SUHO, leader of K-pop group EXO.
cover link North Korea’s Geopolitics, South Korea’s Pop Culture Wave Take Center Stage at Korea Program’s 20th Anniversary Conference
Dafna Zur with K-pop group aespa.
News

K-pop’s “Next Level”: Notes from the Field

Prof. Dafna Zur shares impressions from her visit with Soo-Man Lee, founder and chief producer of SM Entertainment, and the rare opportunity to tour the Seoul-based company and see the K-pop megastars-in-training. The preliminary results of this fieldwork, part of a documentary on K-pop, will be aired during the Korea Program's 20th Anniversary conference.
cover link K-pop’s “Next Level”: Notes from the Field