Background
Sonia Ryang was born on October 1, 1960 in Japan to Korean parents. She grew up, speaking both Korean and Japanese.
Heslington, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom
In 1988, Sonia Ryang received a Master of Philosophy degree from the University of York.
The Old Schools, Trinity Ln, Cambridge CB2 1TN, United Kingdom
In 1991, Sonia Ryang got a Master of Philosophy degree from Cambridge University. She also holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree, which she received at the same educational establishment.
7 Chome-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo City, Tokyo 113-8654, Japan
From 1992 to 1993, Sonia studied at the University of Tokyo.
(This book considers the language, ideology and identity o...)
This book considers the language, ideology and identity of three generations of North Koreans in Japan, organized around Chongryun. It explores how, over three generations, individuals and the community reconcile cope with changing attitudes and approaches toward Japanese society and Korean culture.
https://www.amazon.com/North-Koreans-Japan-Language-Transitions-Asia/dp/0813330505/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493148901&sr=1-1&keywords=north+koreans+in+japan
1997
(This book explores the process, by which the postwar anth...)
This book explores the process, by which the postwar anthropology of Japan has come to be dominated by certain conceptual and methodological, and exposes the extent, to which this process has occluded people's view of Japan.
https://www.amazon.com/Japan-National-Anthropology-Routledgecurzon-Association/dp/0415405793
2004
(This compelling and controversial book places the concept...)
This compelling and controversial book places the concept of love in both a social and historical context.
https://www.amazon.com/Love-Modern-Japan-Estrangement-Anthropology/dp/0415479266/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493149366&sr=1-1&keywords=love+in+modern+japan
2006
(Linking autobiographic writings by Korean women in Japan ...)
Linking autobiographic writings by Korean women in Japan and the United States and the author's ethnographic insights, Writing Selves in Diaspora presents an original, profound and powerful intervention - both literary and anthropological - in readers' understanding of life in diaspora, being female, and forming selves.
https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Selves-Diaspora-Autobiographics-Anthropology-ebook/dp/B002E9H3FK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493148638&sr=1-1&keywords=writing+selves+in+diaspora
2008
(This volume attempts to multiply the angles, from which o...)
This volume attempts to multiply the angles, from which one can look at North Korea by reassessing the international environment, in which it is placed, the process of production of its culture and the historical paths it has followed.
https://www.amazon.com/North-Korea-Toward-Understanding-Anthropology/dp/0739132059
2008
(Sonia Ryang casts new light on the study of North Korean ...)
Sonia Ryang casts new light on the study of North Korean culture and society by reading literary texts as sources of ethnographic data. Ryang focuses critical attention on three central themes - love, war and self - that reflect the nearly complete overlap of the personal, social and political realms in North Korean society.
https://www.amazon.com/Reading-North-Korea-Ethnological-Monographs/dp/0674062477
2012
(In writing Eating Korean in America: Gastronomic Ethnogra...)
In writing Eating Korean in America: Gastronomic Ethnography of Authenticity, Sonia Ryang is as much an eater as a researcher. Her accounts of the cities and their distinctive take on Korean food are at once entertaining and insightful, yet deeply moving. Ryang challenges the reader to stop and think about the food we eat every day in close connection to colonial histories, ethnic displacements and global capitalism.
https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Korean-America-Gastronomic-Authenticity-ebook/dp/B013E0JGR0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493149568&sr=1-1&keywords=eating+korean+in+america
2015
administrator anthropologist educator author
Sonia Ryang was born on October 1, 1960 in Japan to Korean parents. She grew up, speaking both Korean and Japanese.
In 1988, Sonia Ryang received a Master of Philosophy degree in Politics from the University of York. In 1991, she got a Master of Philosophy degree in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University. From 1992 to 1993, Sonia studied Anthropology at the University of Tokyo. She also holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University.
Ryang began her career in 1987 as a Lecturer in Japanese at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the University of Durham. She held this position for a year, till 1988, when she was made a Lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Adelaide, the position she continued to hold until 1998.
In 1995, Ryang acted as a Post-doctoral Research Associate at Cambridge University. From 1995 to 1997, Ryang served as a Research Fellow in Anthropology at the Australian National University. In 1997, she began working as an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Johns Hopkins University. She held this position for three years and later was assigned as an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the same university and held the post for the next six years.
In 2006, Sonia was appointed an Associate Professor of Anthropology and International Studies and C. Maxwell and Elizabeth M. Stanley Family and Korea Foundation Scholar of Korean Studies at the University of Iowa, the positions she held till 2010. From 2008 to 2012, Sonia served as the Director of the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies and International Programs at the University of Iowa. From 2010 to 2014, Ryang worked as a Professor of Anthropology and International Studies, as well as the C. Maxwell and Elizabeth M. Stanley Family and Korea Foundation Chair of Korean Studies at the same university. For a year, between 2013 and 2014, she was also the Director of Academic Programs and International Programs at the University of Iowa.
It was in 2014, that Ryang joined Rice University as the T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Asian Studies and the Director of the T.T. and W.F. Chao Center for Asian Studies, the positions she continues to hold these days.
Along with her educational career, Sonya is a famous author. She wrote seven books. Her recent publications include Reading North Korea: An Ethnological Inquiry (2012) and Eating Korean in America: Gastronomic Ethnography of Authenticity (2015).
(Linking autobiographic writings by Korean women in Japan ...)
2008(This volume attempts to multiply the angles, from which o...)
2008(This book explores the process, by which the postwar anth...)
2004(Sonia Ryang casts new light on the study of North Korean ...)
2012(This book considers the language, ideology and identity o...)
1997(In writing Eating Korean in America: Gastronomic Ethnogra...)
2015(This compelling and controversial book places the concept...)
2006Sonia Ryang began her anthropological career with research on the Korean minority in Japan as her primary focus of the investigation. Now she also concerns herself with a much broader set of conceptual and ontological questions, pertaining to human existence, encompassing ethnic minorities, diaspora, totalitarianism, ideology, romantic (and other forms of) love, language, food and science.
In 2020, Sonia Ryang was made the President of the Society for East Asian Anthropology.