PLEASE NOTE: For non-Columbia guests, registration is required to access the Morningside campus 24 hours prior to the event. After registering you will receive an email with a QR code that must be presented along with a government-issued ID (your name must match exactly the name registered for the event) at either the 116th Street & Broadway or 116th Street & Amsterdam gates for entry. Please register using a unique email address (one email address per registrant) by 12:00 PM on Monday, November 17 for campus access.
Names will be submitted for QR codes 1-2 days prior to the event and subsequently reviewed. Registrants will receive an email from CU Guest Access with the QR code before or on the day of the event.
Speaker: Marie Seong-Hak Kim, Professor of History and Law, St. Cloud State University
Moderator: Hetty Ye Jae Lee, Ph.D candidate in the Department of East Asian Cultures and Languages, Columbia University
Born in Seoul, Marie attended Ewha Womans University, where she was a reporter for the university newspaper. She obtained a Ph.D. in French history at the University of Minnesota and a J.D. at the University of Minnesota Law School, and was admitted to the Minnesota Bar. She was a professor at St. Cloud State University until 2025. Her primary research interests lie in comparative legal history. She is the author of Custom, Law and Monarchy: A Legal History of Early Modern France (Oxford University Press, 2021) and Michel de L’Hôpital: The Vision of a Reformist Chancellor during the French Religious Wars (Truman State University Press, 1997) in European history, as well as Constitutional Transition and the Travail of Judges: The Courts of South Korea (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and Law and Custom in Korea: Comparative Legal History (Cambridge University Press, 2012) in East Asian history. She translated Law and Custom in Korea into Korean as Kwansŭppŏp: Hanguk kyŭnhyŏndaesa wa pigyopŏp yŏngu (Minsokwon, 2025). She also edited The Spirit of Korean Law: Korean Legal History in Context (Brill, 2016). Most recently, she was a fellow of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg “Einheit & Vielfalt im Recht” at the University of Münster, Germany (2023–2024).
Marie Seong-Hak Kim will deliver her lecture on Tuesday, November 17 at 4:00 PM.
Modern Korean history has never had a dull moment. Cold War crises in the years after the Korean War not only resulted in the division of North and South Korea but also created profound fissures among South Koreans, giving rise to deep, ideologically tinged debate over politics and law. Central to this discussion is the evolving role of the courts, which took much fire for having failed to protect citizens' rights under the authoritarian governments in the 1970s and early 1980s. As the courts moved toward a more activist stance from the 1990s onward, they became targets in a proxy war fought between competing political forces over the country’s constitutional identity. More recently, the government has launched a series of reforms that have placed legal institutions under renewed pressure. A balanced and reasoned review of the history of courts in Korea can help us assess more accurately the country’s volatile political circumstances.
Registration:
- To attend this event in-person, please register HERE.
- To attend this event online, please register HERE.