The Mutual Gaze: Grassroots Encounters and the Foundations of a Living Korea–U.S. Alliance

2026 marks the 60th anniversary of the first U.S. Peace Corps volunteers' arrival in Korea in 1966—a milestone that quietly set in motion one of the most enduring people-to-people relationships in modern Korea–U.S. history. Beyond diplomacy and economics, the alliance's lasting strength has been built through personal encounters, educational exchange, and cultural understanding. The Mutual Gaze takes its title from this two-way dynamic. Where much scholarship on Korea–U.S. relations focuses on the structural—alliance politics, security, economic interdependence—this conference turns to the grassroots: American volunteers who taught in rural classrooms, Korean intellectuals who reinterpreted American modernization theory on their own terms, and personal narratives rarely captured in the official record. This conference also celebrates two books commemorating that legacy. Peace Corps Korea and the Path of Korean Studies gathers the experiences of four returned volunteers—Edward Shultz, Donald Baker, Laurel Kendall, and Suzanna Samstag Oh—whose service inspired lifelong contributions to Korean Studies. The conference also features The Long Arc of Leadership by James E.H. Mayer, former Peace Corps director, reflecting four decades of leadership built on humility, listening, and cross-cultural engagement. Bringing together these authors, scholars, and the Peace Corps Korea community at the Korean Heritage Library of USC, this conference argues that the living foundatio