The Good Life in Exile:
The Life and Work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

with Professor Katie Peterson and Professor Young Suh

Is the Good Life impossible to find if you're an exile from your homeland? What does it mean to speak when the language you are speaking is not your own?

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha was born in Korea in 1951, the second year of the three year Korean Civil War, a conflict that still divides the country between North and South. She emigrated to the United States in 1962. Her book, Dictee, is an artistic response to living as a Korean woman artist in Western culture, when Korea was still struggling to build its own country after 36 years of Japanese occupation and the Korean War. In Dictee, Cha juxtaposes poems, historical documents, personal history, and photographs. She uses three different languages: English, Korean, and French. It is a self portrait built from a multiplicity of languages and competing narratives. The book combines Greek mythology, Catholic iconography, and Korean folk ritual — it's a vivid, experimental work that is also very personal.

In this seminar we will discuss writing as an act of speech deeply rooted in personal experience and the historical forces that surround it, and as a struggle to tell a story of inhabiting and surviving in one's own body. We will engage with Cha's book as readers, viewers, and writers. What does the ability to speak about one's life have to do with the Good Life? What does it mean for an exile to find a voice?

click here for a pdf of flyer

The first 10 undergraduate students that register for both the public lecture and the writing workshop will receive a free copy of Dictee.

  • Public Lecture

    Saturday, February 11
    10:30am- 12:00pm,
    followed by a lunch reception

    All are welcome! This is a free event and open to the general public. Registration is encouraged, as food will be provided.

    Registration is closed

  • Visit to the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

    Friday, February 17
    1:00pm-4:00pm

    Join us as we experience Dictee through the art and archival documents of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Archive. Much of the Cha’s work at BAMPFA was created during her time as a graduate student in comparative literature and art at UC Berkeley.

    Registeration is closed

  • Writing Workshop

    Friday, February 24
    5:30-7:00pm

    This is a free event and open to the general public. Registration is required. Space is limited.

    Register

  • Professor Katie Peterson

    Katie Peterson is a Professor of English at the University of California, Davis where she teaches poetry workshops and courses on contemporary literature. She is the author of four books of poetry: This One Tree, Permission, The Accounts, and A Piece of Good News. She received a PhD in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard.

  • Professor Young Suh

    Young Suh is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of California, Davis. He is a visual artist using photography, video, words, and handmade books to tell stories about human lives and the difficulties of our existence on earth. His work has been exhibited in Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Datz Museum in South Korea, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, and the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.