Dr. Choi joined the University of Iowa faculty in 2018.

Dr. Hyaeweol Choi (pronounced Heh-wall Che) is Professor of Korean Studies, Gender History, and Religious Studies, and holds the C. Maxwell and Elizabeth M. Stanley Family and Korea Foundation Chair in Korean Studies at the University of Iowa. Before joining the University of Iowa faculty in 2018, she taught at the Australian National University, Arizona State University, Smith College, and the University of Kansas. She also served as President of the Association for Asian Studies (2024–2025).

Her research interests span gender, empire, modernity, religion, food and the body, and transnational history. She has published widely on topics including the genealogy of modern womanhood in Korea; the emergence of the “New Woman” in colonial-era Korea; the evolution of the concept of domesticity in encounters between Christian missionaries and women in Asia and the Pacific; and the impact of transnational mobility on gender norms and bodily practices. Her current project, Food and the Life Politics of Domesticity in Global Korea, explores the domestic sphere as a nexus of local, public, global, and environmental forces. Through this lens, she examines everyday gender politics and performances in relation to food ethics and practices in an age marked by excess, inequality, and ecological crisis.

To find moments of peace, happiness, and gratitude, she enjoys cooking with her partner, practicing yoga, and engaging in meditation.

Research Interests

• Modern and contemporary Korea
• Gender and empire
• Missiology
• Food and body
• Global Asias

Selected Publications

Books

• The Oxford Handbook of Modern East Asian Gender History, co-edited with Barbara Molony and Janet Theiss (Oxford University Press, 2026)
• Gender Politics at Home and Abroad: Protestant Modernity in Colonial-era Korea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020)
• Gender in Modern East Asia: An Integrated History, co-authored with Barbara Molony and Janet Theiss (Westview, 2016)
• Divine Domesticities: Christian Paradoxes in Asia and the Pacific, co-edited with Margaret Jolly (Canberra: ANU Press, 2014)
• New Women in Colonial Korea: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2013)
• Gender and Mission Encounters in Korea: New Women, Old Ways (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009)

Peer-reviewed articles and book chapters

• “A Taste of Transpacific History: Gendering Korean Cookbooks,” in Eating More Asian America: A Food Studies Reader, edited by Rober Ji-Song Ku, Martin F. Manalansan IV, and Anita Mannur, pp. 319-336 (New York: New York University Press, 2025)
• “Zen Buddhist Nuns Go Global: Temple Food in South Korea,” Food, Culture & Society.  
  DOI: 10.1080/15528014.2022.2047567 (online, 2022)
• “The Nineteenth Century,” in Routledge Global History of Feminism, edited by Bonnie Smith and Nova Robinson (Routledge, 2022), pp. 105-18
• “Crossing the Lines: Pak Indŏk, Christianity, and the Impulse to Claim New Space,” Journal of Korean Religions 12, no. 2 (October: 2021): 37-67
• “The Sacred and the Secular: Protestant Christianity as Lived Experience in Modern Korea: An Introduction,” Journal of Korean Studies 25, no. 2 (Fall: 2020): 279-89
• “Transpacific Aspiration toward Modern Domesticity in Japanese Colonial-era Korea,” Journal of Women’s History 30, no. 4 (Winter 2018): 60-83
• “Claiming Their Own Space: Australian Women Missionaries in Korea, 1891-1900,” Australian Historical Studies 48, no. 3 (August 2017): 416-432
• “Missionary Home as a Pulpit: Domestic Paradoxes in Early Twentieth-Century Korea,” in Divine Domesticities: Christian Paradoxes in Asia and the Pacific, edited by Hyaeweol Choi and Margaret Jolly (Canberra: ANU Press, 2014), pp. 29-55
• “Debating the Korean New Woman: Imagining Henrik Ibsen’s “Nora” in Colonial Era Korea,” Asian Studies Review 36 (March 2012): 59-77
• “The Visual Embodiment of Women in the Korea Mission Field,” Korean Studies 34 (2010): 90-126
• “‘Wise Mother, Good Wife’: A Trans-cultural Discursive Construct in Modern Korea,” Journal of Korean Studies 14, no. 1 (Fall 2009): 1-34
• “A New Moral Order: Gender Equality in Korean Christianity,” in Religions of Korea in Practice, ed. Robert Buswell (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), pp. 409-420
• “Christian Modernity in Missionary Discourse from Korea, 1905-1910,” East Asian History 29 (June 2005): 39-68

Honors and recognition

• President of the Association for Asian Studies (2024 - 2025)   
• Speaker of the Andrew L. Markus Memorial Lecture, University of Washington (May 19-20, 2025)
• The Center for East Asian Studies Distinguished Lecturer, University of Pennsylvania (February 18, 2025)
• Yang Won Sun Honorary Visiting Distinguished Scholar for Hong Kong University Korean Studies Program (March 25-April 5, 2024)
• Robert C. Staley Distinguished Visiting Professor in East Asian Studies, Arizona State University (April 15-19, 2019)

Grants

• Korea Foundation Grant. Awarded to support the Korean Studies Research Network (KoRN) at the University of Iowa and the Midwest (2019-2024)
• Australian Research Council Discovery Project Award (2014-2016)
• Academy of Korean Studies Overseas Leading University Program for Korean Studies Grant (2011-2016)
• Fulbright Research Award (2010)
• Northeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies Research Grant (2007)
• Korea Foundation Advanced Research Grant (2004-2005)
• National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Fellowship (2004)

View curriculum vitae