The three-time alum returns to The Forest as professor of Hebrew Bible
April 2023 – Drew Theological School is pleased to welcome Dr. Dong Sung Kim C’07, T’11,’22 back to The Forest as assistant professor of Hebrew Bible, starting in fall 2023.
Kim is currently an adjunct professor at the Theological School, teaching Hebrew Exegesis and Bible & Its Interpreters.
A three-time graduate of Drew, Kim earned his PhD with distinction and Master of Divinity from the Theological School, and Bachelor of Arts in economics with a minor in business management from the College of Liberal Arts.
His dissertation is entitled, “Deuteronomistic Unhistory: Politics of Time, Affect, and Nationhood in Judges’ Narrative World,” and is expected to be published as his first monograph in 2024.
Kim was born and raised in South Korea. His current academic interest is reading biblical historical narratives with what Asian American writer Cathy Park Hong calls, “minor feelings,” a term that Kim deploys to engage with biblical stories and reflect on the time-binding forces of communal trauma, national identity, diaspora, migration, and the various forms of belonging and marginalization generated by those affective experiences.
“I look forward to learning with Drew’s students and faculty members, and to building together a stronger coalition to advance our shared values and commitments,” said Kim.
“Dr. Kim’s research is exciting in its focus on strategies that engage biblical narratives in ways that invite closer readings of the life, death, and rhythms of the socially and historically marginalized communities that are alternatives to the dominant society within and outside the biblical contexts,” said Theological School Dean Edwin David Aponte. “His teachings and research will certainly bring forth rich and edifying conversations amongst our students and faculty.”
His published works include “Children of Diaspora: The Cultural Politics of Identity and Diasporic Childhood in the Book of Esther” in T&T Clark Handbook of Children in the Bible and the Biblical World, “Queer Hermeneutics: Queering Asian American Identities and Biblical Interpretation” in T&T Clark Handbook of Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics, and “Reading with Minor Feelings: Racialized Emotions and Children’s (Non)agency in Judges 10–12” in Biblical Interpretation.
“A graduate of both the College of Liberal Arts and the Theological School, Dr. Kim represents the best of Drew—integrating rigorous critical theory with ministerial formation, professional research, and ethical commitments towards justice and equity,” said Kenneth Ngwa, professor of Hebrew Bible and chair of the search committee. “He brings passion and care to student-learning experience, and to interdisciplinary education and ministerial training. Dr. Kim brings great value to the work of the Theological School. We are all thrilled to have Dr. Kim as a colleague.”
