John G. Grisafi is a scholar of Korean Studies and Religious Studies, with concentration in Asian Religions and the history and culture of religion and philosophy in Korea. His research area is the critical discursive study and history of religion in modern Korea, including through law and policy, historiography and memory, media, literature, film, other cultural productions, and popular discourses. He is the author of “A Marginal Religion and COVID-19 in South Korea: Shincheonji, Public Discourse, and the Shaping of Religion” (Nova Religio 25.1, August 2021).
While at the Nam Center, John is working on revising his dissertation, titled “The Shaping of Religion Through Empire in Modern Korea, 1876–1948,” into a book manuscript on the same topic. He is also finalizing other research projects for publication, including one on
the spatial narrative history of Shinto shrine sites in Seoul, and one on narratives of religion in North Korean textbooks, and writing a state of the field review on religion and empire in Korea. Additionally, John is assisting in the teaching of KRSTD 471 Nam Center Undergraduate Fellows Research Seminar and will otherwise assist with the mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students in Korean Studies.
John is originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and served for ten years in the U.S. Army as a Korean linguist and analyst, including five years assigned in South Korea. After leaving the military, he pursued the study of Korea and East Asia. He received his BA and MA in East Asian Languages & Civilizations and in History from the University of Pennsylvania, and his PhD in Religious Studies from Yale University.
