Over half of the 25 years of KQ print edition issues are now digitized and viewable | by Martha Vickery (Winter 2024)
Research on the history of World War II in Asia; recipes for Korean summer dishes; drama, film and book reviews; interviews with Korean Minnesotan artists on how they weathered the pandemic; and multi-year coverage of how Jeju islanders in one small village resisted a South Korean-U.S. funded naval base, and turned their cause into an international peace campaign.
What these topics and hundreds more have in common, is that they have all been covered in Korean Quarterly since 1997, and are included in the new digital archive, which is on the website now.
KQ’s first issue was published fall 1997 and the last print issue came out in the spring of 2022. As of January 2024, issues from 2006 to the final print edition in 2022 are viewable in the archive. The earlier issues from fall 1997 through 2005 are being digitized and will be added later in 2024. The archive will also have enhanced searchability. That function will also be launched in 2024.
The project will make KQ’s 25-year print edition history permanently accessible to Korea-philes, researchers and other readers. The archive is also a quarter-by-quarter history of the Korean American community broadly, and the upper Midwest area in particular, during an era when a large demographic of Korean adoptees became adults and a large group of second-generation Korean Americans moved into mid-adulthood. Both groups began to take on leadership in the Korean American community, and KQ stories track the growth both groups at a key moment in history.
Funding for this project was provided through volunteer labor by staff and many contributors, and with financial support by KQ contributors over a multi-year fundraising campaign. KQ also received a major grant from the Thomas and Wonsook Foundation, founded by Thomas Park Clement and Wonsook Kim, which fund many projects to benefit Korean adoptees.
To stay informed of archive progress click the “stay informed” link at the top of the KQ homepage.
To donate to KQ’s Digital Archive fundraising project, click here.
