Associate Professor of Global Media Studies, Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences

Dr. Ji-Hyun Ahn was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea until she started her doctoral studies in the US in 2008. She received a BA degree in English Literature from Sogang University in 2005 (Summa Cum Laude). She received an MA degree in Visual Communication from the Graduate School of Communication & Arts in Yonsei University in 2007 and PhD in Media Studies in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at The University of Texas at Austin in 2013. She joined the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at the University of Washington Tacoma as an Assistant Professor in September 2013. At UW Tacoma, she teaches courses on media globalization and inter-Asian media/cultural studies.

Dr. Ahn's primary research topic focuses on racial reconfiguration in East Asia as influenced by the massive flow of global migration today and the spectacularization of racial bodies on the screen in contemporary South Korean television. Considering race as a fundamental principle shaping global social order, her aim is to theoretically understand the complex nature of current racial globalization coupled with the transnational circulation of media and cultural texts in East Asia.