“The Normalcy of Search: Disabling Societies and Adoptee Identities”

In this lecture and dialogue, Korean adoptee scholar Kim Park Nelson will discuss the social construction of disability and apply the same thinking to cultures of adoption. She will explore how social conditions created to make biological or adoptive kinship “normal” are sometimes also used to deny adopted people access to birth histories, cultures, and/or family relations, using birth search as a primary example of the social disability many adoptees face.

WHO: Open to Public
WHERE: Med School Tutors, 555 5th Ave, 15th Floor
Entrance is on 46th Street. Might need to ring the night bell to the left of the entrance.
WHEN: Thursday, Jan 24, 7 pm – 8:30 pm
RSVP: Please mark GOING on this FB event, or send msg to Michael Mullen

Afterwards, we’ll continue the discussion at a nearby bar.

About Kim Park Nelson

Kim Park Nelson is an educator and researcher whose work uses adoption as a lens to understand race and culture. Her work has contributed to building of the field of Adoption Studies and Korean Adoption Studies in the U.S. and internationally. She taught the first college level class on Korean adoption in 2006 and was the three-time lead organizer for the International Symposia on Korean Adoption Studies in Seoul. Professor Park Nelson’s book, Invisible Asians: Korean American Adoptees, Asian American Experiences and Racial Exceptionalism was published in 2016. She is an associate professor of American Multicultural Studies at the Minnesota State University at Moorhead. She was born in Korea and lives in Minneapolis.