Woohyeok Seo
PhD candidate in International Relations
London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Violence · Technology · Memory
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
ABOUT
I am a final-year PhD candidate in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). My research asks how technologies of violence, memories of harm, and political order are mutually constituted, with a regional focus of the Asia-Pacific.
My work brings together nuclear politics, security studies, science and technology studies, memory studies, and historical international relations.
RESEARCH
Doctoral Project: Becoming (Un)Nuclear: Memory, Technology, and the Hierarchy of Nuclear Harm in Japan and South Korea (1945-1975)
This project examines how discourses of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy were co-constituted with collective memories of nuclear violence in postwar Japan and South Korea, from the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings through the 1954 Bikini incident and the nuclear tests that followed. Drawing on multilingual, multi-sited archival fieldwork across Hapcheon, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Seoul, and Tokyo, and discourse tracing across approximately 2,200 documents, it develops the concept of mnemonic nuclearity: the discursive coupling and severance of nuclear technology and collective memories of the violence it caused.
The project argues that this coupling and severance were hierarchical. Memories of nuclear violence were politicized and depoliticized through various modes that differed in how far the state prevailed over the direction of memory, from silencing, through selective mobilization, to contestation. The more the state governed which nuclear violence was remembered, the more legitimate the technology became, so nuclear legitimacy and the public remembrance of its violence moved in opposite directions. Empirically, Japan's universalism and South Korea's particularism, opposite framings of whose harm counted, drew on the same modes and converged on the foreclosure of Korean nuclear-harmed people. By showing that the direction of nuclear memory was not given but made through its coupling with and severance from technology, the project reframes the legitimation of nuclear order as resting on managing which harm is recognized as nuclear and remembered as violence.
Publications
Peer-reviewed Articles
• "Nuclear Technology and (De)politicising Memories of Nuclear Violence in Postcolonial South Korea (1945–75)." Cooperation and Conflict. 2026. Link.
• "East Asia’s Alliance Dilemma: Public Perceptions of the Competing Risks of Extended Nuclear Deterrence," with Lauren Sukin. Journal of Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, 2024 Link.
Edited Special Issue / Introduction
• Introduction to Special Issue, "Traversing Memories in Global Politics," Millennium: Journal of International Studies, with Kinti Orellana Matute and Pauline Zerla. 2025 Link.
Works in Progress
• An article introducing the concept of mnemonic nuclearity: theorizing how states legitimate nuclear technologies by shaping which forms of violence are remembered or excluded as nuclear harm.• An article on the politics of nuclear harm between universalism and particularism: examining how opposing national memories of nuclear violence can converge in excluding the same nuclear-harmed people.
Research Interests
Nuclear politics
Political violence
Weapons and technology
Collective memory
Historical international relations
Asia-Pacific international relations
TEACHING
I have taught international security and supported postgraduate dissertation writing in the International Relations Department (IRD) at LSE. My teaching emphasizes active learning, inclusive participation, and structured support for students’ research design, argumentation, and writing.
Teaching
LSE IR205 International Security, Graduate Teaching Assistant, 2023–2024LSE IR205 International Security, Guest Lecturer, “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Strategic Competition,” 2024
Student Engagement
LSE IR485/499 Postgraduate Dissertations, Dissertation Surgeon, 2023–2025LSE IRD Incoming Undergraduate/Postgraduate Orientation, Welcome Coordinator, 2023–2025LSE IRD Postgraduate Dissertation Session, PhD Assistant and Panelist, postgraduate academic retreat at Cumberland Lodge, 2023 and 2025
CONTACT
For academic inquiries, teaching-related matters, or other professional correspondence, please contact me at: [email protected]