In October 2013, Professor Chan E. Park visited UVa as part of the East Asia Center’s 2013-2014 Lecture Series. Park earned her Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii (1995), and is currently Professor of Korean Language, Literature, and Performance at Ohio State University. Her specializations include research and performance of Korean lyrical and narrative tradition including the story-singing tradition of p’ansori.
Park has published extensively on Korean performativity and its interdisciplinary implication, including her monograph, Voices from the Straw Mat: Toward an Ethnography of Korean Story Singing (University of Hawaii Press, 2003), and Songs of Thorns and Flowers: Bilingual Performance and Discourse on Modern Korean Poetry Series (Foreign Language Publications, 2010).
Park is the innovator of “bilingual p'ansori,” and has presented at numerous locations around the world. She has singly or collaboratively produced nine world premieres including: Centennial P'ansori: In 1903, Pak Hungbo Went to Hawai’i (2003); When Tiger Smoked His Pipe (2003); Shim Ch’ong: A Korean Folktale (2003); Alaskan P'ansori: Klanott and the Land Otter People (2005); Pak Hûngbo Went to Almaty (2007); Fox Hunts and Freedom Fighter:s Korean and Western Women in Seoul 1894-1920 (2009); Fox Hunt and the Death of a Queen (2012); Hare Returns from the Underwater Palace (2013).
As part of her lecture at UVa, Park presented “Hare Returns to Land,” her bilingual adaptation from the p’ansori Sugungga (Song of the Water Palace).