Najung Kim

Najung Kim specializes in acculturation occasioned by the influx of immigrants and art objects in East Asia and the art of yimin (remnant subjects) in pre-modern China. Dr. Kim’s current book project, Displaced Landscape: The Art of Ni Zan (1301-1374) and the Voices of Refugees examines how works of art helped shape imageries of home and belonging in times of insecurity, focusing on the Chinese painter Ni Zan, who was driven into exile during the closing years of the Mongol Yuan dynasty. This project considers the metaphorical concept of having arborescent roots to illuminate the vital roles of landscape art as a tight weave of community and as a therapeutic agent. Her second project delves into how a state deploys material objects to legitimize its political identity, through the lens of the Ashikaga shoguns’ systematic collecting of Chinese and Korean objects during Muromachi Japan (1336-1573).

Dr. Kim’s pedagogy is inspired by the approach adopted in her research: works of art serve as powerful social forces, or “charismatic objects,” that can be deployed or redirected by viewers and posterity. Her courses integrate hands-on experiences of works of art in various media and formats, such as ink painting, calligraphy, handscrolls, and album leaves, to encourage students to consider an artwork as an event, not merely as a frozen imagistic object.