K-Books in the K-Wave: Seoul Mothers & the Poetry of Rice

Speaker and Discussant

• Speaker: Dr Jieun Joe Kiaer (YBM-KF Professor of Korean Linguistics, University of Oxford)
• MC: Dr. Min Jung Jee (Senior Lecturer, School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland)
• Discussant: A/Prof. Isaac Lee (Co-Director of Korean Studies Centre, School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland)

About the speaker

Dr Jieun Joe Kiaer (조지은) is the YBM-KF Professor of Korean Linguistics at the University of Oxford and a leading expert on the Korean language, Hallyu (the Korean Wave), and K-culture. She has authored over 50 books on Korean linguistics, translingualism, and cultural translation, and serves as the Korean consultant for the Oxford English Dictionary, helping to introduce Korean words into global English.

Her research also explores global identities of English and the politics of language ownership. Her latest book, Whose Language Is English? (Yale University Press, 2024), examines the shifting boundaries of English in a multilingual, global world.

Jieun's literary and academic works spring from her life lived between—and often beyond—Korean and English. She is a natural storyteller whose writing blends scholarship with lived experience. Her debut novel, Seoul Mothers, is a sharp black comedy about education, pressure, and class in contemporary Korea. Have You Had Your Rice? is her first poetry collection—a tender and vivid exploration of food, memory, and care.

Jieun is also producing a documentary film, Haenyeo: Ocean Work, in collaboration with acclaimed filmmaker Curtis Winter, spotlighting the lives and voices of Jeju’s iconic sea-diving women.