Kirsten Younghee Song, Ph.D.

Teaching Assistant Professor - Sociology

Dr. Song r eceived an M.A. and Ph.D in sociology from Rutg ers University. She also earned an M.A. in gerontology from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Dr. Song’s research has focused on transnationalism, international migration, culture, identity, and life course. Her most recent work examines the transition to adulthood among Korean educational migrants in the U.S. and how economic, social, cultural, and institutional resources/constraints shape their decision-making about everyday lives and distant futures between Korea and the U.S. Focusing on the liminal nature of young adulthood (i.e., no longer adolescents, but yet not fully self-sufficient adults) in particular, her research highlights the significance of life stage in shaping migration trajectories in that it constructs distinct needs, desires, and abilities of individuals at a certain time period of their life course and further works to facilitate and/or hinder migrants’ life opportunities.

As a cultural sociologist, her past research engages more broadly in the area of national identities, generational differences in cultural practices, news media, emotions, and engaged-learning. She published a comparative study of Koreans’ collective memories in the U.S. and Korea, a news narrative analysis of a Korean national crisis, and implementation of mindfulness practices to a sociology classroom and its implication on engaged learning.

Dr. Song currently works on international college students’ engagement in campus and local communities and more broadly curriculum and campus internationalization.

Selected Publications

Song, Kirsten Y and Victoria Velding. (2019). Transnational Masculinity’ in the Eyes of Local Beholders?: Young Americans’ Perception of K-Pop Masculinities. Journal of Men’s Studies"

"Song, Kirsten Y. (2018). Lost in the ‘Big World’: Korean Transnational Migrants’ Transition to Adulthood. Invited book chapter for Critical Gerontology Comes of Age: Advances in Research and Theory for a New Century, edited by Chris Wellin and Brooke Hollister. New York: Routledge.

Song, Kirsten Y. 2015. “Emotion Culture as a Resource of Sensemaking: Transforming an Arson Case of a Korean National Heritage to Citizens' Responsibility.” Conditional Acceptance at Poetics – a Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media, and the Arts.

Song, Kirsten Y. 2015. “Between Global Dreams and National Duties: the Dilemma of Conscription Duty in the Transnational Lives of Young Korean Males.” Global Networks: A Journal of Transnational Affairs 15(1): 60-77.

Song, Kirsten Y. and Glenn Muschert. 2014. “Opening the Contemplative Mind in the Sociology Classroom.” Humanity and Society 38(3):314-38.

Courses Taught

SOCA 101 Introduction to Sociology
SOCA 207 Social Problems
SOCA 223 Death and Dying
SOCA 301 Sociological Theory