Sunmin Yoon

Biography

Sunmin Yoon is an Assistant Professor of World Music/Ethnomusicology and Korean Studies. Trained in ethnomusicology, Sunmin’s primary research focuses on Mongolian oral and folk song traditions, particularly in the urtyn duu (long-song) tradition, with a particular interest in the entanglement among sound, language, and its local and environmental impacts on culture and the human mind. She also explores this entanglement in her work on Korean culture, using K-pop as an educational tool for Korean language learners and further examining the connection between K-pop culture and the mental health of K-pop followers in the US, Mongolia, and beyond. Her selected works can be found in publications such as MUSICultures (2019), and Asian Music (2019), and as chapters in Musical Space: Music, Performance, Power (Jenny Stanford Publishing, 2021) and Socialist and Post-Socialist Mongolia (Routledge, 2021). She is also a co-editor of a book, Mongolian Sound Worlds (U of Illinois Press, 2022; Honorable Mention, 2023 SEM Ellen Koskoff Prize Honorable Mention 2023; The Klaus Wachsmann Prize 2024). Her PhD is from University of Maryland at College Park. 

For her joint position at University of Delaware, Sunmin teaches Korean language and culture courses for the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures (DLLC) and various world music/ethnomusicology courses for the School of Music. 

Degrees

• ​PhD from U​niversity of Maryland at College Park​