Beyond the Sewol: Activist Theatre and Performance in South Korea and the Diaspora examines how performance documents death, loss, and memory in South Korea and diasporic communities. Through a close reading of various types of performative works that commemorate the Sewol ferry disaster of 2014—theatre productions, exhibitions, interactive memorial events, site-specific public performances, street protests, and even K-pop music videos—the research shows that these works perform a kind of collaborative public counter-memory that pushes back against dominant narratives about the disaster and contributes to a form of activism through commemoration. This diverse corpus of performance has emerged as a central mode through which Korean artists, often working in collaboration with Sewol families and survivors, have created a public memory archive countering official versions of the event. Furthermore, theatre and performance have provided an arena through which the project of commemorating the Sewol has been linked by activists to broader demands for changes in politics and society, especially around issues of government accountability, redress for victims, and public empathy for survivors. By identifying and analyzing a multimedia collection of performative works commemorating the Sewol, this book reveals the ways activists and artists mobilizing performative strategies have labored to transform the meaning of the Sewol from an unresolved national trauma into a catalyst for creating a safer, fairer, and more caring society. Dr. Jeong has received competitive research grants from the 4.16 Foundation, Academy of Korean Studies, and the American Society for Theatre Research for this project, and has published her early findings in peer-reviewed journals Performance Research, New Theatre Quarterly, and Theatre Journal. Beyond the Sewol will be published in September 2025 via the University of Hawai’i Press (https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/beyond-the-sewol-activist-theatre-and-performance-in-south-korea-and-the-diaspora/).