PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS

• 2025- Visiting Researcher

  Centre for the Social Study of Microbes

  University of Helsinki

• 2022- Assistant Professor

  Zachary T. Smith Faculty Fellow

  Department of Anthropology

  Affiliated Faculty, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department

  Affiliated Faculty, The Environmental and Sustainability Studies Program

  Wake Forest University

• 2019-22 Postdoctoral Fellow

  Society of Fellows in the Humanities

  University of Hong Kong

• 2018-19 Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow

  Institute for Korean Studies

  Indiana University

EDUCATION

• 2018 PhD, Sociocultural Anthropology

  University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

• 2012 MA, Sociocultural Anthropology

  Georgia State University

  Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies

• 2009 MA, Korean Studies

  Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies

• 2007 BA, Japanese and Religion

  Emory University

  magna cum laude, high honors in Japanese

PUBLICATIONS

Books

• 2025 Unscripting the Present: The Security Panic of Queer Youth Sexuality. State University of New York Press.

• 2023 Banal Security: Queer Korea in the Time of Viruses. Helsinki University Press. [open access]

Refereed Journal Articles

• 2026 “Hack the Anthropologist: Translating Source Code, Adapting Research Ethics.” Human Organization. February. https://doi.org/10.1080/00187259.2026.2629381.

• 2026 “Creatures of the High Strangeness: On Synchronicity and the Weird.” Supernatural Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Art, Media, and Culture 11(1): 7-33.

• 2025 “In the Times of Viruses.” Science & Technology Studies. December. https://doi.org/10.23987/sts.148084

• 2025 “Viral Imperialism: Outbreaks in South Korean Film.” Inter Asia Cultural Studies. 26 (3): 422-438. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649373.2024.2423589

• 2025 “Pleasure’s Ascendency: Against Queer Youth Panic.” Critical Studies in Television. 20 (4): 414-429. https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020241241996.

• 2023 “Viral Entanglements: Biosecurity, Sexuality, and HIV/AIDS in South Korea,”

• Current Anthropology 64 (2): 172-190.

• 2023 “A City in a Bunker in a City: Demilitarizing Art in South Korea.” Museum Anthropology 46 (1): 4-14. https://doi.org/10.1111/muan.12263.

• 2022 “‘Minute by Minute’: The Radical Presentism of Queer Youth Sexuality.” Sexuality & Culture 26: 1766-1781.

• 2022 “Narratives of the Homoerotic Soldier: The Fleshiness of the South Korean Military,”

• Cultural Studies 36(6): 1005-1032

• 2021 “The Queer Way in South Korea.” East Asia Forum Quarterly 13(4): 24-25.

• (Invited commentary).

• 2021 “The Limits of Family: Military Law and Sex Panics in Contemporary South Korea,”

• positions: asia critique 29(3): 607-632.

• 2018 “Sex/Gender Insecurities: Trans Bodies and the South Korean Military.” Co-Author, Horim Yi. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 5(3): 378-393. (Co-authors contributed equally).

• 2013 “Affective Resistance: Objects of Korean Popular Music.” International Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies 9(1): 5-36.

Book Chapters

• n.d. “Education and ‘Alterlife’ in the Anthropocene.” Co-author Zsuzsa Millei. In The Palgrave Handbook of Science and Technology Studies in Education. (Co-authors contributed equally).

• 2024 “Fictitious Folklore and World-Making in Popular Culture.” Co-author Ilana Gershon. Mobius Media: Popular Culture, Folklore, and the Folkloresque, Jeffery Tolbert and Michael Dylan Foster, eds. Salt Lake City: Utah State University Press, 137-154 (Co-authors contributed equally).

• 2014 “Bad Mothers and ‘Abominable Lovers’: Goodness and Gayness in Korea.” In Mothering in East Asian Communities: Politics and Practices. Duncan, Patti, G. Wong, eds. Bradford, Ontario: Demeter Press, 145-157.

Under Review

• n.d. “Moralizing the Virus: Queer Practices Amidst Banal Security” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience (in review)

• n.d. “Sex Panics at the End of the World.” The Journal of Popular Culture (in review).

Book Review Essays

• 2024 “Situating Microbes.” American Ethnologist 51(2): 285-288. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.13266.

• 2024 “Crisis in the Frozen Anthropocene.” Anthropological Theory Commons. https://www.at-commons.com/2024/02/14/crisis-in-the-frozen-anthropocene/.

Book Reviews

• 2024 Review of Gut Anthro: An Experiment in Thinking with Microbes by Amber Benezra. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 10(1): 1-4. https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v10i2.41548.

• 2024 Review of Nice is Not Enough: Inequality and the Limits of Kindness at American High by C.J. Pascoe. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 55(2):227-228. https://doi/10.1111/aeq.12492.

• 2021 Review of Viral Economies: Bird Flu Experiments in Vietnam by Natalie Porter. Asian Journal of Social Science 49: 177-178.

• 2018 Review of Curative Violence: Rehabilitating Disability, Gender, and Sexuality in Modern Korea by Eunjung Kim. Postcolonial Text 13(3), http://postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/view/2394/2214.

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

Blog and Online Pieces

• 2025 “A Requiem for Queer Youth.” SUNY Press Blog. April 14. https://sunypress.edu/Blog/2025/A-Requiem-for-Queer-Youth

• 2021 “Pandemic Surveillance and Homophobia in South Korea.” Items: Insights from the Social Sciences, Social Science Research Council. September 24. Co-Author Wonkeun Chun. https://items.ssrc.org/covid-19-and-the-social-sciences/covid-19-fieldnotes/pandemic-surveillance-and-homophobia-in-south-korea/

• 2020 “Tracing homophobia in South Korea’s coronavirus surveillance program.” The Conversation. June 18.

• 2020 “On Banal Security.” Anthropology News website. June 17. DOI: 10.1111/AN.1427.

• 2020 “Viral Living.” Social Anthropology/ Anthropologie Sociale. https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-8676.12849.

• 2018 “Curating Peninsular Destruction.” Anthropology News website. November 28. DOI: 10.1111/AN.1045.

• 2017 “Empire of Precarity: Queerness, South Korea, and Donald Trump.” Huffington Post Korea. January 1, http://www.huffingtonpost.kr/timothy-gitzen/story_b_14097076.html.

Interviews

• 2025 “Timothy Gitzen on his book, Unscripting the Present.” CaMP Anthropology Blog. December 22. https://campanthropology.org/2025/12/22/timothy-gitzen-on-his-book-unscripting-the-present/

• 2024 “Banal Security: Queer Korea in the Time of Viruses.” New Books Network. December 13. https://newbooksnetwork.com/timothy-gitzen-banal-security-queer-korea-in-the-time-of-viruses

• 2022 “Episode 405: Pandemic Surveillance and Homophobia in South Korea.” COVIDCalls. February 1. https://covidcalls.podbean.com/e/ep-405-212022-pandemic-surveillance-and-homophobia-in-south-korea/

FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS

• 2025 Wake Forest University ($15,000)

  Lam Fund for Academic Excellence

• 2024 Wake Forest University ($20,000)

  Pilot Research Grant

• 2024 Wake Forest University ($6000)

  Archie Fund for the Arts and Humanities

• 2024 Wake Forest University ($3000)

  Publication Fund

• 2024 Wake Forest University ($4000)

  Leadership & Character Course Development Grant

• 2024 Wake Forest University ($18,000)

  Zachary T. Smith Faculty Fellowship

• 2022 Horizon Europe ($150,438.72)

  Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions European Postdoctoral Fellowship [declined]

• 2022 The Academy of Korean Studies ($13,500)

  Korean Studies Grant, Scholarly Publication (Monograph)

• 2020-21 Social Science Research Council ($5000)

  Rapid-Response Grant on Covid-19 and the Social Sciences (collaborator: Wonkeun Chun)

  “Queering the Surveillance Assemblage: Covid-19 and Homophobia in South Korea”

• 2013-17 University of Minnesota Anthropology Department ($12,000)

  Summer Fellowships

• 2016 University of Minnesota ($23,000)

  Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship

• 2016 University of Minnesota ($4000)

  CLA Graduate Partnership Fellowship with Karen Ho

• 2015 University of Minnesota ($5000)

  CLA Thesis Research Travel Grant

• 2015-16 Korea Foundation ($20,000)

  Korean Language Training Fellowship

INVITED TALKS

• 2026 “Three Microbial Stories: An Anthropological Perspective.” University of Oulu Biology Colloquium. Oulu, Finland. March 19.

• 2026 “Speculating Microbes, Speculative Ethnography.” Biodiverse Anthropocenes Guest Speaker Seminar. Oulu, Finland. March 10.

• 2026 “Microbial Viability: Uncertainty in a Thawing Arctic.” University of Helsinki Anthropology Colloquium. Helsinki, Finland. February 13.

• 2026 Unscripting the Present book talk. University of Helsinki. February 10.

• 2025 Unscripting the Present book talk. Wake Forest University. April 9.

• 2023 “Thinking with Viruses.” University of Oulu. Oulu, Finland: May15.

• 2023 “Thinking with Viruses.” Arctic Centre. Rovaniemi, Finland: May11.

• 2023 “Thinking with Viruses.” University of Lapland. Rovaniemi, Finland: May10.

• 2023 “Bunkers and Museums: Demilitarizing Art in South Korea.” Lam Museum of Anthropology. February 16.

• 2022 “Pictures, Protests, and Personal Narratives: Queer Surveillance in South Korea.” Wake Forest University. January 28.

• 2021 “Security’s Porosity.” Anthropology Department Seminar. Chinese University of Hong Kong. November 12.

• 2021 “On Aliveness: Viruses, Evolution, Life.” Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. University of Hong Kong: May 18.

• 2021 “Security’s Porosity.” Committee on Gender Equality and Diversity of the Faculty of Arts Seminar Series. University of Hong Kong: April 21.

• 2019 “‘A Walking Bomb’: HIV, Biosecurity, and Sexuality in Contemporary South Korea.” Bucknell University. Lewisburg, PA: April 16.

• 2019 “The Terrorism Zeitgeist: Queers, Muslims, and Culture in South Korea.” Institute for Korean Studies Colloquium Series. Indiana University. Bloomington IN. March 29.

• 2019 “‘A Walking Bomb’: HIV, Biosecurity, and Sexuality in Contemporary South Korea.” College of Charleston. Charleston, SC: March 1.

• 2019 “The Threat of Queer Bodies: HIV, Sexuality, and Biosecurity in South Korea.” Women’s Studies Department. University of Hawaii, Manoa. Honolulu, HI: February 12.

• 2019 “‘A Walking Bomb’: HIV, Biosecurity, and Sexuality in Contemporary South Korea.” Stevens Institute of Technology. Hoboken, NJ: February 5.

• 2019 “Sex on Base: Portraits of a Homoerotic Korean Soldier.” Gender Studies Colloquium. Indiana University. Bloomington, IN: January 28.

• 2018 “Soldiers, Sex, Subversion: Queer Militarization in South Korea.” East Asian Studies Program. Emory University. Atlanta, GA. November 12.

• 2018 “On the Banality of South Korean Militarization: A Queer Consideration.” Department of Anthropology. Georgia State University. Atlanta, GA. November 9.

• 2018 “Queer Taboos: South Korea, Sex Panics, and Family.” Keynote Speaker for Annual

• Anthropology Club Conference. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. February 24.

• 2016 “The Threat of One’s Labor: Queer Activism and Korea’s Capitalist Imaginaries.” Institute for Cross-Cultural Studies. Seoul National University. Seoul, South Korea. May 18.

INVITED DISCUSSIONS AND WORKSHOPS

• 2026 Invited lecture in The Darker Side of Life—on Disgust, Abject, Food and Beyond class. Arts Department. Aalto University. Helsinki, Finland. March 10.

• 2025 Invited discussion about frozen viruses and temporality in Childhood and Ecology research group. Tampere University, Finland. September 26.

• 2024 “Character Across the Curriculum: Lessons from the Course Development & Redesign Workshop at Wake Forest University.” Educating Character Across Differences. Winston-Salem, NC December 6.

• 2024 Invited discussion/lecture in Monsters, Magical Creatures, and Non-Empirical Beings class. Anthropology Department, Georgia State University. Atlanta, GA. June 13.

• 2022 Invited discussion/lecture in Ethnography of Korea class. Anthropology Department, University of British Columbia. Vancouver, BC. November 1.

• 2022 Invited discussion in class about the body. History Department, Pomona College. Carleton, CA. October 31.

• 2019 “On the Jurisprudence of Queers: South Korean Military Law and the Politics of Exclusion.” AAS Emerging Fields workshop on Law, Society, and Justice in Asia. University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, MI. May 17-19.

• 2018 “The ‘Ghosting’ of Health: Queer Infections, Biosecurity, and HIV/AIDS in South Korea.” Queer Korea: Health and Cultural Representation. Brown University. Providence, RI. April 7.

• 2017 “The Panicked Mother: Queer Infections and the Limits of Family in South Korea.” Rethinking East Asian Families and Family Laws: Critical Legal, Gender, and Ethnographic Perspectives. Indiana University. Bloomington, IN. May 10-12.
  

CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION

Conferences Organized

• 2014 “Discussions on Asia: The Midwest Graduate Student Conference.” University of

• Minnesota. Minneapolis, MN April 11-12.
  

Panels and Workshops Organized

• 2025 “Paranormal Data: Empiricism and Ethnographies of the Unknown and Unknowable.” American Anthropological Association. New Orleans, LA. November 19-23.

• 2022 “Unsettling Queer Asia.” Invited Panel, Association for Queer Anthropology, American Anthropological Association. Seattle, WA. November 9-13.

• 2021 “Porosity and Residue: Dialogues of an Affective Korea.” American Anthropological Association. Baltimore, MD. November 17-21.

• 2020 “Viro-Politics” (double panel). American Anthropological Association. St. Louis, MO. November 18-22. (Cancelled due to Covid-19)

• 2020 “Otherwise Narratives: Mutations of Transnational Korea.” National Women’s Studies Association. Minneapolis, MN. November 12-15. (Cancelled due to Covid-19)

• 2018 “The Temporality of the Edge.” American Anthropological Association. San Jose, CA. November 14-18.

• 2017 “Ruptures of Power: Queer Politics and South Korean Imaginaries.” National Women’s

• Studies Association’s Annual Meeting. Baltimore, MD. November 15-19.

• 2013 “Precarious Time: Discussions on the Un/Doing of East Asia.” Invited Panel, Society for East Asian Anthropology, American Anthropological Association. Chicago, IL. November 20-24.

Papers Presented [selection]

• 2026 “Speculating Microbes, Speculative Ethnography.” Nordic Environmental Social Science Conference. Uppsala, SE. June 9-11.

• 2026 “Nature-Culture Heritage: Bioart and the Repurposing of Ruins.” European Citizen Science Association Conference. Oulu, FI. March 3-6.

• 2024 “Bullies, Gay Sex, War: The Racialization of the American Security Apparatus.” Popular Culture Association/ American Culture Association Conference. Chicago, IL. March 27-30.

• 2022 “Queer Solidarity and the Unsettling of a Transnational Korea.” American Anthropological Association. Seattle, WA. November 9-13.

• 2021 “The Porosity of a Transnational Korea.” American Anthropological Association. Baltimore, MD. November 17-21.

• 2021 “Non-neoliberal Sexualities: A Different Sort of Queer Youth Guidance.” Socialism, Capitalism, and Childhood. Atlanta, GA. October 20-21.

• 2020 “Mass Surveillance and the Viro-Political.” American Anthropological Association. St. Louis, MO. November 18-22. (Cancelled due to Covid-19)

• 2020 “On the Porosity of Transnationalism.” National Women’s Studies Association. Minneapolis, MN. November 12-15. (Cancelled due to Covid-19)

• 2018 “The Unending: Cold War Temporalities and Peninsular Destructions.” American Anthropological Association. San Jose, CA. November 14-18.

• 2018 “Towards a Kinship of Viruses.” National Women’s Studies Association’s Annual Meeting. Atlanta, GA. November 8-11.

• 2018 “Security, Interrupted: Queering Family Law in Contemporary South Korea.” Association of Asian Studies. Washington, DC. March 22-25.

• 2017 “An Emerging Manifesto: Ethnicity, Islamophobia, and Queer Activism in South Korea.’” American Anthropological Association. Washington DC. November 29-December 3.

• 2017 “#QueersAgainstIslamophobia: A South Korean Rejoinder.” National Women’s

• Studies Association’s Annual Meeting. Baltimore, MD. November 15-19.

• 2017 “On Masculinity and Violence: The Toxicity of the South Korean Military.” Academy for Korean Studies in Europe. Prague, CZ. April 20-23.

• 2016 “‘Homosexuality Out!”: Military Law and Queer Threats in South Korea.’” American

• Anthropological Association. Minneapolis, MN. November 16-20.

• 2014 “Specters of Seoul: The Militarization of Visibility.” Association of Asian Studies.

• Philadelphia, PA. March 27-30.

• 2013 “Militarized Futures: Gay Men in a Precarious South Korea.” American Anthropological Association. Chicago, IL. November 20-24.

• 2012 “Good Mothers, Gay Sons: Affective Personhood in South Korea.” American

• Anthropological Association. San Francisco, CA. November 13-18.

• 2012 “Bloody Little Secrets: Narrating Coming Out in South Korea.” Southern

• Anthropological Society. Birmingham, AL. March 15-17.

• 2012 “Clandestinity: Coming Out in South Korea.” Southeastern Conference of the Association of Asian Studies. Greenville, SC. January 19-21.

• 2012 “Bloodied and Broken Docility: Queering Gay Bodies in South Korean Cinema.” New Voices: Bodies of Influence. Georgia State University. Atlanta, GA. January 13.

Roundtable Participation

• 2019 “Curating Asia: A Roundtable Discussion on Cultural Consumption and Performance.” American Anthropological Association. Vancouver, BC. November 20-24.

Discussant

• 2025 “Paranormal Data: Empiricism and Ethnographies of the Unknown and Unknowable.” American Anthropological Association. New Orleans, LA. November 19-23.

• 2022 “Infrastructure as Social Landscape: Shaping Interactivity and Worldviews in Digital Environments.” American Anthropological Association. Seattle, WA. November 9-13.
  

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Wake Forest University

• Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (in person and online)

• Anthropological Theory

• Cyborg Anthropology

• First-Year Seminar: Sex Panics!

• Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality

• Media Worlds
  

University of Hong Kong

• Feminist Science and Technology Studies (online)

• The Body in Culture (online)

• Precarious Korea (online)

University of Minnesota

• Language, Culture, and Power

• Introduction to LGBTQ Studies

Georgia State University

• Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Undergraduate Research Mentoring

• Honors Thesis Advisor, Wake Forest University (3 students) 2023-present

• Directed Reading, Multiculturalism in Korea, University of Hong Kong 2020

• Advisor, George Washington University-Indiana University Undergraduate Research Exchange Program 2018-2019

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Manuscript Reviewer

• American Anthropologist

• Cultural Anthropology

• American Ethnologist

• Medical Anthropology

• Anthropological Quarterly

• Anthropological Theory Commons

• Cultural Studies

• TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly

• The Journal of Homosexuality

• Porn Studies

• Journal of Intercultural Studies

• City & Community

• Critical Studies in Television

• Journal of Medical Humanities

• Immediations

• Korean Studies

• Seoul Journal of Korean Studies

• Journal of Korean Religions

• International Journal of Korean History

Organizations and Editorial

• 2023-present Book Reviewer, CHOICE Review

• 2023-25 Research Ethics Guides Writer, Hack for LA. https://www.hackforla.org/

• 2022-23 Committee Member, Kenneth Payne Graduate Student Paper Prize, Association for Queer Anthropology.

• 2021-23 Committee member, Early Career Mentoring Committee, Association for Political and Legal Anthropology.

• 2019-20 Contributing Editor, Platypus, The CASTAC Blog. http://blog.castac.org/

• 2017-18 Committee Member, Steven Gudeman Lecture Series Committee, University of Minnesota.

• 2014 Organizer, Sociocultural Anthropology Colloquium Series, University of Minnesota.

• 2013-14 Committee member, Ruth Benedict Book Prize, Association for Queer Anthropology.

• 2013-14 Committee member, David Plath Media Prize, Society for East Asian Anthropology.

• 2010-12 Founder and Organizer, Atlanta Forum of Anthropology, Georgia State University.

• 2008-9 Founder and Editor in Chief, Papers, Essays and Reviews Journal, Yonsei University.

UNIVERSITY SERVICE

• 2023-2025 Lower Division Advisor

• 2023 Organizer, Field Futures Workshop for field research safety

• 2022-present Anthropology Speaker Organizer

RESEARCH AND FIELDWORK

• 2022-present Microbes, ice, and climate change in the Arctic (Finland)

• 2020-present Queer theory, queer media

• 2020-22 Surveillance technologies, viruses, and homophobia in South Korea

• 2013-19 National security, viruses, sexuality, and queer activism (South Korea), 21 months total in-country fieldwork for dissertation and book

• 2010-12 Gay identity and Korean family (South Korea), MA thesis in-country fieldwork

AFFILIATIONS

• 2021-22 Affiliated Scholar, Gender Studies Programme, University of Hong Kong

• 2019-22 Member, Anthropology at University of Hong Kong

• 2019-22 Affiliated Scholar, Korean Studies Programme, University of Hong Kong.

• 2015-16 Visiting Scholar, Institute for Cross-Cultural Studies, Seoul National University