Dr. Ruth Barraclough

Biography

Ruth Barraclough is a labor historian of modern Korea with particular interests in gender, biography, and literature. Her book 'Factory Girl Literature: Sexuality, Violence and Representation in Industrializing Korea' focuses on the experiences of working-class women and girls during Korea's industrialization. This book has garnered recognition, spending twenty weeks on the history best-seller list and being nominated for the President’s summer reading list by Korea’s leading newspaper editors, named a top ten book in 2017. Her forthcoming book, 'Island Ablaze Stories', published by Cornell University Press in October 2025, explores Korea's relationship with the United States through an anthology of short stories co-edited with Jin-kyung Lee and others. Barraclough has also co-authored 'Red Glamour: Korea’s Early Communist Women', which relied on extensive archival research, including the State Archive of Social Political History in Moscow and the North Korean collection at the National Library of Australia. She is currently the Faculty Director of the Dual Degree Masters in International and World History at Columbia University and joined Columbia in 2024 after serving on the faculty at the Australian National University.

Research Interests

Experience