Name:
Min-Kyoo Kim
College:
Wolfson College
Supervisor:
Dr. Laura McMahon
Research topic:
The visuality of nuclear violence and victimhood in the photographic and moving image archive
Education:
- BSc International Relations (First) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (2016-19)
- MPhil in Film and Screen Studies (Distinction) at University of Cambridge (2020-21)
- PhD in Film and Screen Studies at University of Cambridge (2022-)
Research:
- Drawing on an interdisciplinary background, Min-Kyoo’s doctoral research explores visual representations of nuclear proliferation. In particular, he is interested in the concept of the remainder-less destruction of the archive, as articulated in Jacques Derrida’s Nuclear Criticism.
- Expanding on Derrida’s conceptualisation and drawing on such works as Akira Mizuta Lippit’s “atomic light” and Gabriele Schwab’s “nuclear necropolitics”, Min-Kyoo’s research attends to the colonised, racialised, Indigenous and gendered histories that have already been consigned to a state of avisuality in our narratives and aesthetics of nuclear proliferation.
- Going further, Min-Kyoo’s research considers alternate and radical modes of representations to the mainstream simulacra of nuclear proliferation, such as the re-mediation of archival footage in documentaries such as Radio Bikini (1988) or moving images beyond the cinema, such as Jane and Louise Wilson’s installation, The Toxic Camera (2021).
- Previously, Min-Kyoo has also explored his interests in the cinema of North Korea, through his MPhil dissertation, entitled The nationalist-melodrama of the North Korean cinema-state: the formation and evolution of juche cinema; other work has also included discussions of the Benjamin-Adorno debate on the revolutionary potential of mass culture, as explored through the films of Charlie Chaplin, and a Fanonian inflected analysis of the The Battle of Algiers (1966).
Papers presented:
- “The ghost of Chernobyl or the spectre of Communism? Documentary, drama and nuclear disaster”, Wolfson Research Event, University of Cambridge, May 4th 2023
- “The ever-expanding Exclusion Zone: Representing the hyperobjectivity of radioactivity in Vladimir Shevchenko’s Chernobyl, Chronicle of Difficult Weeks (1986) and Jane and Louise Wilson’s The Toxic Camera (2021)”, Borders, Boundaries, Fringes, Sheffield University, June 9th 2023
- “Avisuality in the atomic archive: The forgotten history of uranium mining in the Congo”, Shaking the Archives, Queen Margaret University, June 23rd 2023
- “The Ghost of Skynet: A Gothic Reading of the Revenant in The Terminator (1984)”, Haunted Futures, University College Cork, October 27th 2023
- “Austerity, nuclear anxiety and the archive: Thatcher’s politics of precarity in Threads (1984)”, Precarity and the Moving Image, Precarity Research Network (online), December 15th 2023
- “We are a magic, powerful people: Cyberfeminism and Archiving the Atomic Age in Carry Greenham Home (1983)”, Work-in-progress seminar, University of Cambridge, January 30th 2024
- “Labour in the Nuclear Apocalypse: Motherhood in Testament (1983) and Threads (1984)”, Labour and Screen Media, BAFTSS, University of Sussex, April 5th 2024
- “Traces of Trauma in Hiroshima: Narrating Japanese and non-Japanese experiences in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car (2021)”, Borders, Boundaries, Edges and Fringes in Japanese Film, Sheffield University, June 12th 2024
- “The critical slowdown: Reviving Jacques Derrida’s Nuclear Criticism through Revisiting Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962) and Sidney Lumet’s Fail-Safe (1964)”, Film-Philosophy, Espinho, July 1st 2024
Publications:
- “I’ll Be Back: The Return of the Revenant from the Nuclear Future in The Terminator (1984)”, book chapter, Atomic Horror: Fears of Nuclear Power in Gothic Literature, Film and Media (commissioned)
Teaching:
- CS7: Cinema and the Political (2023/24)
- Wolfson Writing Consultant (2023/24)
- Min-Kyoo is happy to hear from any students with projects relating to his research interests
Scholarships/ Prizes:
- Min-Kyoo’s research is funded by the Wolfson Postgraduate Scholarship in the Humanities (2022-25), as one of four students in the area of Language and Literature at the University of Cambridge
Extra-curricular:
- President of the All Greys, Cambridge’s inter-Collegiate rugby club for mature Colleges (2023-24)
- Advanced French, Cambridge University Language Centre (2023-24)
https://www.wolfson.cam.ac.uk/news/politics-korean-film-studies-meet-phd-student-min-kyoo-kim
