Colloquia Archive
Previous Colloquia: AY 2006-7 to 2016-17
Academic Year 2016-2017
Marcie Middlebrooks, The Regenerative Ethics of a Scientific MelodramaFriday, Mar. 10, 2017
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Jeeyeop Kim, The Paradigm Shift of Urban and Housing Policy in South KoreaFriday, Feb. 10, 2017
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Rachel Lee, The Origins of Social Inequality and Political Hierarchy in KoreaThursday, Dec. 1, 2016
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Youngmi Kim, Personal Narratives of Modernization from Rural South KoreaFriday, Oct. 14, 2016
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Academic Year 2015-2016
Anthony D’Costa, After-Development Dynamics: South Korea’s Contemporary Engagements with AsiaTuesday, Nov. 10, 2015
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Karen Thornber, Tackling Stigma: Leprosy and the Case of Yi Ch’ŏngjunWednesday, Nov. 4, 2015
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Jae-woong Yun, Characteristics of Shamanism in Modern Korean PoetryTuesday, Oct. 27, 2015
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Academic Year 2014-2015
Bumsoo Kim, Who Is Korean? The Changes in the Boundaries of Koreans from the 1940s to the 1950sThursday, June 4, 2015
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Albert L. Park, Reconstructing the Present: Agriculture and Food as Vehicles for Social Critique and Transformation in Contemporary KoreaMonday, June 1, 2015
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Steven Chung, Atrocity-Spectacle: Cheju, Cinema, and the Idea of UnrepresentabilityTuesday May 5, 2015
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Janet Poole, The Disappearing Future: Korean Literature during the Asia-Pacific WarTuesday February 17, 2015
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Dmitry Mironenko, Jesters on the Streets: Satire in North KoreaTuesday January 27, 2015
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Sang Jo Jong, Entertainment Industry in Korea: Synergy of Industrialization and DemocratizationTuesday January 27, 2015
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Dong-won Kim, Science Fiction in South and North KoreaFriday December 5, 2014
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Jung-hwan Cheon, “Reading Foreign Magazines under the Censorship Regime: The Reception of Foreign Magazines in South Korea during the Military Dictatorship of 1960-1980s”Thursday October 9, 2014
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Academic Year 2013-2014
Spring 2014
Jin-kyung Lee
“Visualizing and Invisibilizing the Subempire: Labor, Humanitarianism and Popular Culture Across South Korea, Southeast and South Asia”
Thomson Hall 317
Monday, May 19 @ 3:30PM
Todd Henry
After Assimilating Seoul: Ch’anggyŏng Garden and the Post-Colonial Remaking of Seoul’s Public Spaces
Thomson Hall 317
Friday, May 16 @ 3:30PM
Eujeong Zhang
Sing Modern Chosǒn: “Jazz Songs” in the 1930s
Allen Auditorium, Allen Library
Tuesday, May 6 @ 3:30PM
Kyeong-Hee Choi
Censors in Modern Korea and Their Colonial Making
Thomson Hall 317
Thursday, April 17 @ 3:30PM
E. Taylor Atkins
Empire As A Moral Problem: Religious Cosmopolitanism And Colonial Modernity In Northeast Asia
Thomson Hall 317
Thursday, April 3 @ 3:30PM
Suzy Kim
Modern Times in North Korea: Scenes from the Founding Years
Communications 202
Simpson Center for the Humanities
Friday, March 14 @ 11:00AM
Christopher P. Hanscom
Reiterations of the Real in Colonial Korean Literature
Thomson Hall 317
Tuesday, March 4 @ 3:30PM
Jungwon Kim
A Good Wife and the Making of History: Re-reading Madam Cho’s Diary in Seventeenth-Century Korea
Thomson Hall 317
Wednesday, February 26 @ 3:30PM
Winter 2014
Wang Hwi Lee
“The Political Economy of Corporate Governance Reform after the Asian Financial Crisis”
Thomson Hall 317
Wednesday, January 9 @ 3:30PM
2012 South Korea Presidential Election: Panel Discussion with Yong-Chool Ha, Clark W. Sorensen, Jonathan Kang, Wang Hwi Lee, Beom-Shik Shin, and Sunil Kim
Thomson 317
Monday, January 14, 2013 @ 4:00PM
Wonseok Choi
A Study on the Role and Task of South Korean Taxpayers’ Organizations
Thomson 317
Thursday, January 17, 2013 @ 3:30PM
Jae H. Hyun
“Understanding the globalization of the Korean automobile industry and the implications for post-crisis growth of the Korean economy”
Thomson Hall 317
Wednesday, February 6 @ 3:30PM
Kyung-soo Chun
Anthropology of Colonialism and War under Imperial Japan
Odegaard Library Room 220
Thursday, February 7, 2013 @ 3:30PM
Jaeeun Kim
“Seeking Asylum, Finding God: Religion and Moral Economy of Migrants’ Illegality”
Thomson Hall 317
Wednesday, March 6 @ 3:30PM
Aimee Lee
Hanji Unfurled: One Journey into Korean Papermaking
East Asia Library
Thursday, March 14, 2013 @ 3:30PM
Fall 2013
Hyun Joo Song
South Korean Media System: Toward a Democratization Model
Thomson Hall 317
Tuesday, November 12 @ 3:30PM
Understanding Korea Workshop
Smith Hall 205
Saturday, September 28 @ 9:30AM – 1:00PM
2012-2013
Spring 2013
Caren Freeman
“Paper is Thicker than Blood: Chosǒnjok Migrant at the Gates of South Korea”
Thomson Hall 317
Friday, April 5 @ 3:30PM
Conversation with the Consul General of the Republic of Korea in Seattle
“Whiter the Korean Peninsula?”
Gowen 201
Wednesday, April 24, 2013 @ 5:00PM
Film Screening
Unfortunate Brothers: Korea’s Reunification Dilemma
Kane Hall 210
Monday, May 20, 2013 @ 6:00PM
Youseop Shin
“Unstable Party Identification and Electoral Choice in South Korea”
Thomson Hall 317
Thursday, June 6 @ 3:30PM
Understanding Korea Workshop
Smith Hall 205
Saturday, September 28 @ 9:30AM – 1:00PM
Winter 2013
Jongseob Kim, University of Seoul
A Study of Prenatal Education in Pre-modern Korea and China
January 11 @ 12PM
Thomson Hall Room 317
Suk-young Kim
Twice Crossing: Performing Emotional Citizenship in the Korean DMZ
Monday, January 23 @ 11:00AM
Thomson Hall Room 317
Young Wan Song, Korean Consul General of Seattle
North Korea’s Nuclear Program after Kim Jong-il
Wednesday, January 26th, 2:00-4:00PM
Kane Hall, Walker Ames Room
Dr. Tae-Ung Baik, University of Hawaii
Criminal Process in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: The Origin of Human Rights Violations
Wednesday, February 15th, 3:30PM
Thomson Hall 317
Yukyong Choe, JSD UC Berkeley
Agencies, Roles, and Their Choices: Reform of the Korean Legal Profession from 1995 to 2007
Law School Room 127
Wednesday February 22nd, 2012 3:30PM
Kyung Sup Chang, Seoul National University
Encountering Foreign Brides as Cosmopolitan Others: A Citizenship Perspective on Transnational Marriages in Rural Korea
Thomson Hall Room 317
Wednesday, March 7, 2012 @ 3:00PM
Fall 2012
Dr. Jinhee Son
“Academically Talented Women in South Korea: Career Experiences and the Career Decision-Making Process”
Thomson Hall 317
Wednesday, October 17th @ 3:30PM
Mr. Gheewhan Kim & Dr. Abraham Kim
“Road to U.S.-Korea Global Partnership”
Tuesday, October 23
4:00 PM
OUGL Room 220
CedarBough T. Saeji
“Learning Is Never Done: Age and Performance in the Korean Context”
Monday, November 19
3:30-5:00 PM
THO 317
Dr. Sang Gil Lee
“Broadcasting and Cultural Hybridity in Colonial Korea: The Case of JODK Entertainment Programs (1927-28)”
Wednesday, November 28
3:30-5:00 PM
THO 317
Seongji Woo
“Balance of Dependence: The Making of North Korean Foreign Policy under Kim Jong-il”
Thursday, December 6
3:30-5:00 PM
THO 317
2011-2012
Spring 2012
Forum on 2012 National Assembly Elections in South Korea: Discussion panel with Yong Chool Ha, Clark W. Sorensen, Wang Hwi Lee, and Beom Shik Shin
Wednesday, May 9
3:30-5:00 PM
THO 317
Sang-Yoon Ma
“Between Scylla and Charybdis: US Cold War Strategy and the Question of Democracy in South Korea, 1961-1972”
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
3:30-5:00 PM
THO 317
Jung-hwan Cheon
“On May and Martyrdom: Suicide in the South Korean Democracy Movement Seen Through the Case of Park Seunghee”
Tuesday, May 29
3:30-5:00 PM
THO 317
Winter 2011
Jae-won Sun, Japanese Studies, Pyongtaek University
Jobless Growth in Taking Off: Comparing Colonial Industrialization in Korea with the Post-Liberation Period
Tuesday, February 1
3:30-5:00 PM
THO 317
Kan Kimura, Political Science, Kobe University
Historical Disputes in Japan and South Korea: An Analysis of the History Textbook Issue
Monday, February 14
3:30-5:00 PM
THO 317
Keun-Gwan Lee, Law, Seoul National University
The Coldest Peace: The Current Korean Crisis in the Context of International Law
Wednesday, February 23
12:30-2:00 PM
LAW 212
Spring 2011
Joong Yang Moon, Korean History, Seoul National University
Re-appraising Historical Changes in the Sciences of Late Choson Korea
Thursday, April 14
3:30-5:00 PM
THO 317
Chulwoo Lee, Law, Yonsei University
How Can You Say You’re Korean?: Law, Governmentality, and National Membership in South Korea
Monday, April 19
3:30-5:00 PM
THO 317
Young Sub Lee, Woodwind Musician of Traditional Korean Flutes
Performance and Discussion of Traditional Korean Flutes
Monday, May 2
3:30-5:00 PM
THO 317
Hyung Gu Lynn, Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia
Embracing the Doppelganger: North Korea in Recent South Korean Films
Friday, May 13
3:30-5:00 PM
THO 317
Jonathan Best, History, Wesleyan University
Revealing a 7th Century Marriage Alliance Between Ruling Houses of Silla-Korea and Japan
Tuesday, May 24
3:30-5:00 PM
THO 317
Fall 2011
Authors Ha Song-nan and Han Yu Ju, Bruce Fulton, University of British Columbia
Encounter 2011
November 3rd
Thomson 135
Winter 2010
Heekyoung Cho
Postdoctoral Associate in East Asia Studies & Literature, Yale
Constructing Proletarian Literature: Adapting Turgenv for 1920s Korea
Burglind Jungmann
Art History, University of California
Male worlds-female worlds: gender specific aspects of early Choson painting
Seongho Sheen,
Political Science, Seoul National University
US-ROK Atomic Energy Agreement 2014: Issues, Challenges, and Options
Spring 2010
Nancy Abelmann
Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Navigation Maternal Excess and the Global Child: South Korean Mothers’ Memoir/Manuals of Education Migration
Seung Bum Kye
History, Korea University
Indirect Challenge to the Ming order
Vladimir Tikhonov
History, University of Oslo
The Images of Russians in the Korean Colonial Novels
Gi-wook Shin
Sociology, Stanford University
One Alliance, Two Lenses: American-Republic of Korea Relations in a New Era
Bruce Cummings
History, University of Chicago
Global Focus Series: “The US and North Korea: Dealing With Irrationality”
Fall 2010
Sonia Ryang
Anthropology, University of Iowa
Reading South Korea, Digitally: Changing Human Relations on the Net
Encounters 2010
Korean Literature Colloquium
Encounter 2010: Readings by Authors Haïlji and Ch’ŏn Un-yŏng, Translation by Bruce Fulton
Jennifer Chun
Sociology, University of British Columbia
Organizing at the Margins: The Symbolic Politics of Labor in South Korea and the United States
Ju Hui Judy Han
Post-doctorate in Sociology at the Unviersity of British Columbia
Beyond Good Intentions and Evil Regimes: North Koreans in Korean/American Missionary Custody
Tuong Vu
Political Science, University of Oregon
Paths to Development in Asia: South Korea, Vietnam, China, and Indonesia
February 17, 2009
Tuesday, 3:30-5:00 p.m.
Thomson Hall 317
The Theory of “the Chinese Origin of Western Learning” in Qing China
and Late Chosŏn Korea
Yung Sik Kim, Professor and Director of Kyujanggak Institute, Seoul National University
Yung Sik Kim, Professor at the Department of Asian History, Seoul National University, is also a member of the Program in History and Philosophy of Science. His research interests include science and natural philosophy in traditional China, history of science in Korea and the comparative history of science. He is currently serving as director of the Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies.
When faced with Western ideas and knowledge coming to China in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many Chinese intellectuals resorted to the so-called theory of “the Chinese origin of Western learning” (xixue zhongyuan 西學中源). The proponents of the theory believed that the Western scientific ideas had their origins in ancient China: Chinese had knowledge of them in their ancient golden ages, but such knowledge disappeared later and fell to the hands of the barbarians, who developed it further and brought it back to China. Many modern scholars have studied various ways in which the beliefs in the theory manifested and evolved. In his lecture, Dr. Kim will look again at the situation surrounding the emergence and the spread of the theory. First, he will consider how this belief which now appears so far-fetched could come about and could be accepted so widely. He will suggest that it is a natural attitude found in many other historical circumstances, not restricted to seventeenth-century China. He will then examine the actual responses of the Confucian scholars of the time, including those of the late Chosŏn Korea, and show the great variety found in their attitudes to the idea of the Chinese origin. Dr. Kim will attempt to sort out these various attitudes and to situate them in the intellectual climates surrounding them.
Co-sponsored by the Center for Korea Studies and the China Studies Program.
February 12, 2009
Thursday, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Reception to follow.
Walker-Ames Room, Kane Hall
Financial Crisis in America and Sustainable Growth in Korea
Dr. Un-Chan Chung, Y.T. Shim Endowed Professor of Korea Studies, Center for Korea Studies, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington and Professor of Economics, Seoul National University
Professor Un-Chan Chung (Ph.D., Princeton) was Business Associate and Assistant Professor of Money and Financial Markets, Columbia University (1976-1978), Visiting Scholar, London School of Economics (1986-1987), President of Seoul National University (2002-2006), Member of the President’s Council, University of Tokyo (2006-present), and President of the Korean Social Science Research Council (2008 – present). He has published numerous books and articles on money, financial markets, and macroeconomics in Korean and English. Recent publications include “Korea: In Search of a New Compact” and “How Different is Korean Society Ten Years after the Currency Crisis?”
Sponsored by the Center for Korea Studies.
JANUARY 23, 2009
Friday, 2:00-5:00 pm
Allen Library Auditorium
Dr. Y. David Chung, Center for Korea Studies Professor, School of Art and Design, University of Michigan
Film Screening and Discussion of “Koryo Saram: The Unreliable People”
with co-director/producer Y. David Chung
Chiho Sawada is Associate Director of the Japan Policy Research Institute (JPRI) and Kiriyama Chair Visiting Assistant Professor of History at the Center for the Pacific Rim, University of San Francisco. He is also a Research Fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, specializing in both Japanese and Korean Studies.
This talk explores connections between pop culture, public memory, and the great challenge of achieving enduring reconciliation in East Asia, a region still divided by bitter legacies of war and colonialism. In recent years, scholars and pundits throughout the world have increasingly acknowledged the significance of pop culture in the formation of public memory (or collective historical consciousness). Focusing on Korean-Japanese relations, Professor Sawada will first explain why pop culture has emerged at the fore of debates over the proper memorializing of historical injustices and prospects for regional reconciliation. Second, he offers textual analysis of a blockbuster movie jointly produced by Japanese and Korean companies, comparing its portrayal of colonial relations to that found in school textbooks. In conjunction with this textual reading, Professor Sawada will address the complexities of audience reception to illustrate not only the strengths but also limitations of pop culture as a vehicle for history teaching. He concludes with a few words on how educators and students can enhance the edifying potential of pop culture in our global quest for peace and reconciliation.
NOVEMBER 12, 2008
Wednesday, 3:30-5:00 pm
Thomson Hall, Room 317
Dr. Soojin Kim, Visiting Scholar, Center for Korean Studies, University of Washington
The Visibility and Vagueness of the ‘modern’ – Reading Images of the ‘New Woman’ in Colonial Korea
Dr. Soojin Kim is a Visiting Scholar at the Jackson School’s Center for Korea Studies, received Korea Research Foundation Fellowship for a post-doctoral research program. She took a Ph. D. in Sociology from Seoul National University in 2005. Her book, Excess of the Modern: the New Woman in colonial Korea, is forthcoming from Somyŏng publishing in Korea. She is currently working on a flow and transformations of the images of “flappers” or “modern girls” among the countries in East Asia from America in the 1920’s.
The ‘New Woman’ phenomenon that appeared during the 1920s to the 1930s in Korea is an exemplary which shows ‘hybrid modernities’ in colonial society. It was a part of the global trend that emerged under the direct social/cultural influence of Japan and also a negotiated and appropriated phenomenon which produced colonial differences. In this talk, Dr. Kim examines the multi-faceted contradictory meanings of the ‘New Woman’ and the ‘modern’ by reading various icons of the New Woman — covers from <New Woman (新女性)>, a cartoon series, and Aginomodo (味の素) ads. The ‘New Woman’ signified three archetypes: ‘Shinyŏja’ (‘新女子’), ‘Modern Girl,’ and ‘Good Wife’ (‘良妻’). ‘Shinyŏja’ was a symbol of the subject of civilization, which carried over-determined meanings, rather than simply implied “feminist.” ‘Modern Girl’ represented an imaginary location where the ‘bad’ elements of emulation congregated, which shows an ambivalent attitude toward the modern looks and sexuality. They were criticized for embodying capitalistic corruption, but at the same time, they were fascinating to many readers. Lastly, ‘Good Wife’ referred to a subject who emulated the modern in a desirable way, which revived as a form of the New Woman to represent a ‘good side’ of the mimicry. In the end, the New Woman in Korea was a space on which the politics of colonial identities were projected.
NOVEMBER 7, 2008
Friday, 3:30-5:00 pm
Thomson Hall, Room 317
Dr. Chiho Sawada, Stanford University
Pop Culture, Public Memory, and Korean-Japanese Relations
Chiho Sawada is Associate Director of the Japan Policy Research Institute (JPRI) and Kiriyama Chair Visiting Assistant Professor of History at the Center for the Pacific Rim, University of San Francisco. He is also a Research Fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, specializing in both Japanese and Korean Studies.
This talk explores connections between pop culture, public memory, and the great challenge of achieving enduring reconciliation in East Asia, a region still divided by bitter legacies of war and colonialism. In recent years, scholars and pundits throughout the world have increasingly acknowledged the significance of pop culture in the formation of public memory (or collective historical consciousness). Focusing on Korean-Japanese relations, Professor Sawada will first explain why pop culture has emerged at the fore of debates over the proper memorializing of historical injustices and prospects for regional reconciliation. Second, he offers textual analysis of a blockbuster movie jointly produced by Japanese and Korean companies, comparing its portrayal of colonial relations to that found in school textbooks. In conjunction with this textual reading, Professor Sawada will address the complexities of audience reception to illustrate not only the strengths but also limitations of pop culture as a vehicle for history teaching. He concludes with a few words on how educators and students can enhance the edifying potential of pop culture in our global quest for peace and reconciliation.
OCTOBER 31-DECEMBER 31, 2008
Allen Library North Lobby
Voices From Liberation Space
An Exhibition of Literary Works from the Korean Collection of the
University of Washington Libraries
“The distinctive feature of liberation space is that it is a space in which the voice beyond history and the voice within history collided and boiled over” … Kim Yunsik
The East Asia Library would like to thank the Center for Korea Studies and the Department of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington for their generous support.
OCTOBER 31-NOVEMBER 1, 2008
Friday-Saturday, 8:30 a.m.-6:00 p.m. (Friday, October 31), 8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m. (Saturday, November 1)
Husky Union Building (HUB), Room 310
Speakers: refer to the web link listed below
The Literature of Liberation Space:
A Conference on Korean Literature 1945-1950
This two-day conference brings experts and scholars from around the world to discuss the nature of Haebang konggan, or Liberation Space. Participants include Ruth Barraclough (Australian National University), Bruce Fulton (University of British Columbia), Theodore Hughes (Columbia University), Ross King (University of British Columbia), Wook-jin Jeong (University of Washington), Peter Lee (UCLA), David McCann (Harvard University), Leif Olsen (University of British Columbia), Sinae Park (University of British Columbia), Janet Poole (University of Toronto), Jiwon Shin (UC-Berkeley), Clark Sorensen (University of Washington), and Dafna Zur (University of British Columbia).
Co-sponsored by the Academy of Korean Studies, UW Center for Korea Studies, East Asia Library, and Department of Asian Languages and Literature.
For the conference schedule and list of speakers, visit the Center for Korea Studies Liberation Space webpage.
OCTOBER 30, 2008
Thursday, 5:00-6:30 pm
Allen Library Auditorium, UW Seattle campus
Special Event: North Korean Movie Showing
Film: “용광로” (Yongkwangno / The Crucible), 1949
Co-sponsored by the Academy of Korean Studies, UW Center for Korea Studies, East Asia Library, and Department of Asian Languages and Literature.
For details, please visit the Center for Korea Studies webpage.
OCTOBER 6, 2008
Monday, 3:30-5:00 pm
Thomson Hall, Room 317
Dr. Hagen Koo, Professor of Sociology, University of Hawaii
The Fractured Middle:
The Impact of Globalization on the Korean Middle Class
Hagen Koo is professor of sociology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Born in Seoul Korea, he received his BA in Korea and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. He published extensively on the political economy of East Asian development and the industrial transformation of South Korea. He is the author of the award-winning book, Korean Workers: The Culture and Politics of Class Formation (Cornell University Press, 2001), and the editor of the widely cited book, State and Society in Contemporary Korea (Cornell University Press, 1993). He was a visiting professor at Seoul National University, Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies of Harvard University, Yonsei University, and a fellow-in-residence at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies. Currently, he is working on a book that probes into the ways globalization impacts the social fabric of Korean society, focusing on the disintegration of the middle class, while continuing his research on the labor movement and state-society relations.
With a deepening globalization of the South Korean economy and society, the Korean middle class is squeezed and fractured, losing its previous social character as a basis of Social stability and integration. In this talk, Professor Koo examines the ways globalization impacts Korean society and the ways the Korean middle class has been transformed in recent years. His major argument is that globalization modifies the structural context of class competition and class reproduction and provides differential opportunity structures for different segments of the middle class, thereby magnifying the internal differentiation within the middle class. In this process, the upper segment pursues a global strategy of social mobility and class distinction and becomes increasingly separated from the rest of the middle class, while the lower segments face increasing marginalization in the job market, educational system, and consumption world. The social significance of the middle class thus changes from a basis of social contract to a site of contention and social conflict.
OCTOBER 2, 2008
Thursday, 3:30-5:00 pm
Thomson Hall, Room 317
Dr. Wayne Patterson, Professor, St. Norbert College
Pusan’s First Commissioner of Customs, 1883-1886:
New Perspectives on Korea’s “Chinese Decade”
Dr. Patterson received undergraduate and graduate degrees in history and international relations from Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania. He has been a visiting professor of Korean history at Harvard University, the University of Chicago, the University of Kansas, the University of South Carolina, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Pennsylvania and has taught at Ewha University, Korea University, Yonsei University as a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer, and at the University of the Philippines as a Korea Foundation Visiting Professor. Dr. Patterson has authored or edited twelve books, including The Korean Frontier in America: Immigration to Hawaii, 1896-1910 and The Ilse: First-Generation Korean Immigrants in Hawaii, 1903-1973 (2000), both published by the University of Hawaii Press.
When discussing Korea’s “Chinese Decade,” roughly defined as the dozen or so years prior to the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, most of the attention is focused on the heavy-handed activities of Yuan Shikai in Seoul. Less well known is that part of this Chinese effort to bind Korea more closely to China involved the absorption of Korea’s newly-formed Maritime Customs Service. Several scholars have looked at this topic and this period, including Koh Byong-ik, Lew Young Ick, Lee Yur-Bok, Kirk Larsen, and Kim Dal-Choong, who have outlined the roles and actions of some of the key players such as Sir Robert Hart, Li Hung-chang, Henry F. Merrill, and Paul Georg von Mollendorff. Using the recently-discovered correspondence of the first commissioner of customs in Pusan, William Nelson Lovatt, a British citizen who occupied that position between 1883 and 1886, this paper will discuss some heretofore unknown aspects of this attempted takeover by China.
2007-2008 Academic Year.
| JUNE 10, 2008 |
| Tuesday, 3:30-5:00 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Stephen Epstein, Director, Asian Studies Institute, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand |
| Yellow Dust Blows East: Contemporary South Korean Images of China |
| Dr Stephen Epstein is Director of the Asian Studies Institute and the Asian Studies Programme at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. He has published widely on contemporary Korean literature and society, and is currently working on a book exploring how globalization is transforming Korean identity and co-editing a volume on China-Korea relations. He has also translated several pieces of Korean and Indonesian fiction, including Yang Gui-ja’s Contradictions (Cornell East Asia Series) and was a Translator in Residence with the Korean Literature Translation Institute in Seoul during 2007. The documentary he co-produced with Timothy Tangherlini , Our Nation: A Korean Punk Rock Community, has featured in numerous international festivals.
2007 marked the fifteenth anniversary of diplomatic ties between China and South Korea. The speed with which the two countries have developed a web of ties in multiple spheres has surprised some, while others interpret the depth of connections as a return to a ”natural” compatibility that experienced rupture as a result of Japan’s occupation of Korea and the Cold War years that followed. And yet, centripetal and centrifugal forces coexist: despite multiple affinities and a popular discourse of mutual interest (Korean media reports on, e.g., China’s bewitchment by ”The Korean Wave,” and Korea’s preoccupation with and predominance in the study of Chinese), potential for intercultural conflict and competition remains. Professor Epstein analyses images of China in contemporary South Korea, drawing on television news, cyberspace commentary, advertisements, and books aimed at the popular market. While Korean commentators regularly point out that China’s size and diversity makes it impossible to generalize about the country, patterns of thought do emerge: China as a living instantiation of Korea’s past; China as a site for both Korean opportunity and self-congratulation about its own successes; and China as a country where the ”counterfeit” reigns supreme. I will consider the extent to which reports on the springtime meteorological phenomenon of the hwangsa, the sands that blow over Korea from the Gobi desert, have come to function as an implicit metaphor for Korean understanding of China: an unstoppable juggernaut on its doorstep that brings pollution and poses a challenge to the livelihood and well-being of the nation. |
| JUNE 2, 2008 |
| Monday, 3:30-5:00 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| David McCann, Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and Director of the Korea Institute, Harvard University |
| Control as a Theme in Modern Korean Poetry |
| David R. McCann, ICAS, is Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations as well as Director of the Korea Institute at Harvard University. David is the recipient of numerous prizes, grants, and fellowships including the prestigious Manhae Prize in Arts and Sciences (2004), the Daesan Foundation Translation Grant (1997), and the Korea P.E.N. Center Translation Prize (1994). His many books include Traveler Maps: Poems by Ko Un (2004), The Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry (2004), Early Korean Literature: Selections and Introductions (2001), War and Democracy: A Comparative Study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War (2001) and The Classical Moment: Views from Seven Literatures (1999).
Not only a renowned translator of major Korean poems but also a well-recognized poet, David has published many poems in such distinguished media as Poetry, Ploughshares, Descant, Runes and recently published a chapbook of poems Cat Bird Tree (2005). His poem “David” was included in the Pushcart Prize Anthology III. David’s new book of poems The Way I Wait For You has been accepted for publication by Codhill Press and will be published this year. National historical readings of modern Korean literature used to describe literary works as expressions of the Korean people’s feelings at the tumultuous and challenging events and circumstances of the twentieth century. First, the issue of the modern; next, the Japanese colonial occupation; then the division and war, followed by decades of political repression. Yet however entangled in its historical moments, literature is not a passive reflector; but what sorts of interventions can be deployed to pry it loose? This presentation is part of a project exploring, among other things, the practice and the trope of control as thematic in a modern Korean poetry. Was French literature translated into Korean and read because is was French? Or because it offered a model of a certain type of control? Control of language? Control of income? Control for the self, or at least the potential for a claim on autonomy? But how is control to be demonstrated? On whose terms? Where did Korean roads lead, and how was a walk in a park, or attendance at a wrestling match, like the reading of a poem? |
| MAY 28, 2008 |
| Wednesday, 3:30-5:00 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Pak Sunyoung, Professor, Seoul National University and Korea Studies Visiting Scholar |
| Height and Standard of Living in North Korea 1930s-1980s |
| Dr. Sunyoung Pak is a Visiting Scholar at the Jackson School’s Center for Korea Studies and an Associate Professor in the College of Social Sciences at Seoul National University. She received her Ph.D. from the Anthropology Department of the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1995. Her research areas include women and family in North and South Korea and North East Asia.
North Korean adult refugees who arrived in South Korea during the period of year 1997 to year 2007 are analyzed to assess the changes in the biological standard of living in North Korea from 1930s to 1980s. Adult refugees are grouped by birth decade and the age-adjusted mean heights of these groups are analyzed by dummy regression. In contrast to the population of South Korea, as well as to that of most of the rest of the world, North Koreans did not experience a steady increase in physical stature from 1930s to 1980s. The divergence between the heights of North and South Koreans began among the birth cohorts of the year 1945-1954 and became increasingly pronounced thereafter. This is an indication of the adverse socio-economic circumstances prevailing in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. There has been a popular “belief” among South Korean intellectuals that up to 1970s North Koreans enjoyed better living standards than South Koreans. Although the results of this study do not support this long-held “belief,” a piece of evidence to contextualize such a claim is found in the male height trend. Even though males born in the 1970s were not significantly taller than those born in all the preceding decades, they were taller than those born in the 1960s or in the 1980s. However, judging from the trend in the longitudinal shift in height in totality, it is very likely that the improvement in living conditions in the 1970s in North Korea was short-lived and modest in degree at best. |
| MAY 16, 2008 |
| Friday, 3:30-5:00 pm |
| Communications 226 |
| Dr. Mark Peterson, Asian and Near Eastern Languages, Head, Korean Section, Brigham Young University |
| How did Korea get its History Backwards?: a New History for Korea in the New Century |
| Mark Peterson received his B.A. in Asian Studies and Anthropology from Brigham Young University in 1971. He received his M.A. in 1973 and his Ph.D. in 1987, both from Harvard University in the field of East Asian Languages and Civilization. Prior to coming to BYU in 1984 he was the director of the Fulbright program in Korea from 1978 to 1983. He also served as the President of the Korea Pusan Mission from 1987 to 1990. He has been the coordinator of the Asian Studies Program and was the director of the undergraduate programs in the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies. He is currently the head of the Korean section of the department.
George Orwell said that he who owns the present, owns the past. In Korea, the twentieth century present was one captured in the so-called old saying, “When whales fight, shrimp get their backs broken.” This saying — not really that old — in part of an image of Korea as a powerless victim, and the Korean historical narrative has been one of war, chaos and invasion. As Korea becomes a more powerful nation, will the national narrative change? Will the orthodox history re-imagine itself as something different? This presentation will examine alternative national histories possible in the new century. |
| MAY 5, 2008 |
| Monday, 3:30-5:00 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Dr. Charles Armstrong, The Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Korean Studies in the Social Sciences, Department of History and the Director of the Center for Korean Research, Columbia University |
| North Korea and State Terror |
| Charles Armstrong (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is The Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Korean Studies in the Social Sciences in the Department of History and the Director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University. A specialist in the modern history of Korea and East Asia, Professor Armstrong has published several books on contemporary Korea, including The Koreas (Routledge, 2007), The North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950 (Cornell, 2003), Korea at the Center: Dynamics of Regionalism in Northeast Asia (M.E. Sharpe, 2006), and Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy, and the State (Routledge, second edition 2006), as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. His current book projects include a study of North Korean foreign relations in the Cold War era and a history of modern East Asia. Professor Armstrong is a frequent commentator in the US and international media on Korean, East Asian, and Asian-American affairs.
One of the outstanding impediments in US-DPRK relations is the presence of North Korea on the State Department list of “state sponsors of terrorism.” North Korea has been on this list since 1988, even though, according to the State Department itself, the DPRK has not sponsored any terrorist acts since the bombing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1987. In the Six-Party agreement of February 13, 2007, the United States promised to “begin the process of removing the designation of the DPRK as a state-sponsor of terrorism.” What are the justifications for North Korea to remain designated as a state that sponsors terrorism? What in fact constitutes “state-sponsored terrorism,” for the United States and in general? Is state terror only committed by “rogue nations” such as North Korea, or can other states, including perhaps the US, be considered perpetrators of state terror? Focusing on North Korea’s apparent turn to terror tactics in the 1970s and 1980s, this talk will explore the history of North Korea’s relationship to state terror and the possibilities for moving beyond the stigma of a “terror state” toward a more normal relationship with the US and the world. |
| APRIL 22, 2008 |
| Tuesday, 3:30-5:00 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Dr. Seok Gon Cho, Department of Economics, Sangji University, South Korea |
| Debating Colonial Modernity in Korea: A Survey of the Controversies over Socio-economic Change under Japanese Rule |
| During the last thirty years, there has been considerable debate concerning the features of socio-economic change in Korea under Japanese rule. These controversies were initially sparked by the challenging argument that the Korean economy experienced a kind of modern economic growth during the colonial period. More recently the debate has turned to the standard of living of colonial Koreans. In surveying these controversies, this presentation has two aims. First, in searching for the intellectual background of these controversies Dr. Cho will show that they are related to the path of the prospects for the so-called ‘1987 Regime’ in South Korea. Second, I will provide my own analyses of some of the central points of contention in these debates such as the starting point of modern economic growth in Korea, the standard of living in colonial Korea, and the effect of colonial economic growth on the rapid development of modern South Korea.
Co-sponsored by the Japan Studies Program and East Asia Center. |
| FEBRUARY 15, 2008 |
| Friday, 3:30-5:00 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Jeongsoo Shin, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington |
| “Admonition for the King of Flowers”: The Making of King Peony in Korean Literature |
| The tree peony (Paeoniaceae suffruticosa) or Mudan 牧丹 was coronated the king of the flowers in early Tang floriculture (618-906). Since then, it has enjoyed popularity in the literature of China and her neighboring countries. In the case of Korea, Confucian writers created a unique literary tradition of a floral kingdom, through reinventing the peony motif. Touching on this tradition, the presentation will focus on its earliest examplar, “Admonition for the King of Flowers,” (“Hwawang gae” 花王戒) written by Sŏl Ch’ong 薛聰 (b. 655), a Confucian scholar in Silla Dynasty (94 BCE-935 CE).
This piece has been conventionally discussed as the first adaptation of the peony motif in Korean literature, but few scholars have paid attention to another Chinese influence of fu 賦, a major literary form in early medieval China. I will argue that the subject of a prodigal king and his vassal-adviser came from the Former Han fu (206 BCE-25 CE), and that personified flowers might be motivated by the prosopopoeia of plants in the Six Dynasties (220-589 CE) fu on objects. Moreover, all these Chinese elements comprise the author’s deliberate scheme to avoid conflict from Korean aristocrats. The presentation will shed more light on Sŏl Ch’ong’s creation of a triangle relationship among the three flowers, reflecting the politic tension between the aristocracy and the king at that time. If Peony King and the Rose are metaphors for the authoritarian monarch King Sinmun and a privileged aristocrat, respectively, the withered anemone naturally represents the author himself, whose social status handicapped his court life, despite his remarkable scholarship. Such allegorical competition among a group of flowers is not found in the Chinese literary tradition; flowers were ordinarily likened to court ladies or sometimes a man of dignity in the case of the lotus. Therefore, the political allegory of a flower kingdom is the author’s unique achievement that will develop more sophistication in later Chosŏn (1392-1911) literature. Co-sponsored by the China Studies Program. |
| FEBRUARY 11, 2008 |
| Monday, 11:00-12:30 pm (*NOTE: TIME CHANGE*) |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Jiwon Shin, Associate Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California at Berkeley |
| Collecting Su Shi: Material Culture and Literati Self-Fashioning in Early Nineteenth Century Korea |
| Jiwon Shin, Assistant Professor, received her Ph.D. from the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University in 2003. She specializes in Korean literature and culture from the late Chosôn period through the modern era, focusing on issues of space and identity. Her research interests include: intersection of literature and cartographic imagination; conceptions of urban culture and literary coteries; early modern print culture; nationalist aesthetics. She is working on a book manuscript on late 18th and 19th century literary culture in Seoul. She also translates cultural theories and feminist criticisms as well as literary works from contemporary South Korea.
Although the Chinese writer Su Shi had always been considered an important model cultural figure in Korea, the early nineteenth century fascination with him is distinctly linked to the way in which material possession became a crucial means of fashioning the literati selfhood, particularly among the emerging urban elite in Seoul. The paper examines the manners in which the early nineteenth century Korean writers used their private collections of Su Shi’s poetry, calligraphies, and portraits, as well as the domestically produced duplicates of such texts, toward substantiating their literati self-image, while imagining themselves as distinct from other urban consumers. With a case study of these early nineteenth century writings on collecting Su Shi, the paper aims to consider the broader, underlying issue of the role of material culture in formulating the late Chosŏn articulation of Chinese literary tradition as property whose ownership can be transferred and claimed, as it was reproduced and re-performed in Korea. Co-sponsored by the China Studies Program. |
| JANUARY 14, 2008 |
| Monday, 3:30-5:00 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Hyaeweol Choi, Associate Professor of Korean Studies, School of International Letters and Cultures, Arizona State University |
| Competing Discourses on Modern Womanhood in Transcultural Korea |
| The presentation focuses on the genealogies of the “modern” woman among Korean intellectuals and American women missionaries within the context of Korea’s colonization by Japan at the turn of the twentieth century. Touching on some of the major issues of modern womanhood, such as gender equality, education, participation in the public sphere, and representations of gender in the popular media, it discusses the dynamic interplay between the Confucian-prescribed gender ideology of Korea, the nationalistic desires for nation-building among Korean intellectuals, and the Christian gender ethics of women missionaries. The analysis emphasizes both institutional and discursive endeavors of Koreans and Americans in fashioning modern womanhood in accord with their own mandates-either nationalist, Christian or secular modern. In so doing, the presentation intends to shed light on the ways in which competing narratives on modern womanhood reconfigured Confucian gender ideology for the modern era and also reveals the tensions that women experienced between their newly-found space for emancipation and other forms of social and political control over their bodies and subjectivities. |
| DECEMBER 3, 2007 |
| Monday, 11:45-1:15 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Ronald Toby, Associate Professor of History, East Asian Studies, and Anthropology, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| The Mountain that Needs No Interpreter: Mt. Fuji and the Engagement of the Foreign |
| Professor Toby specializes in Premodern and early-modern Japan; early-modern popular culture; seventeenth- to nineteenth-century Japanese foreign relations; and intraregional relations in premodern Asia. His current research interests include the representations of the foreign in popular culture, 1550-1850; East Asian international history; and village and rural credit. Selected publications include State and Diplomacy in Early-Modern Japan: Asia in the Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu (Princeton University Press, 1984; Stanford University Press, 1991); with Kuroda Hideo, Gyoretsu to misemono (Asahi Newspaper Company Publishing, 1994); and “The Indianness of Iberia and Changing Iconographies of Other,” in Implicit Understandings: Observing, Reporting, and Reflecting on the Encounters between Europeans and Other Peoples in the Early Modern Era, ed. Stuart Schwartz (Cambridge University Press, 1994) 323-351. Professor Toby received his doctorate from Columbia University in 1977.
Mt. Fuji, as likely as the ‘rising sun’ flag to call up the image of ‘Japan’ around the world today, was unfamiliar to most Japanese, except as literary allusion, before the Edo period. Mt. Fuji arose as a nationally recognized symbol of the country only after Edo—in the shadow of the mountain—became the political center of the country. The imagined foreign/foreigner was also implicated in the mountain’s revaluation, however, and a crucial, enduring element of the ‘new,’ international Mt. Fuji emerged from Hideyoshi’s failed invasions of Korea. In this presentation, we examine the way Korea, Koreans, and other alien peoples and places were deployed in literary, visual, and performative dialog with Mt. Fuji, transforming the mountain into a multivalent ideological symbol, both attractive and welcoming, yet at the same time threatening, aggressive and expansionist. Co-sponsored by the Japan Studies Program, Center for Korea Studies, and the East Asia Center. |
| NOVEMBER 30, 2007 |
| Friday, 3:30-5:00 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Jeong-il Lee, Co-adjunct Professor, Foreign Languages and Humanities, Los Angeles City College |
| Engaging the Late Ming in Chosôn Korea, China and Civilization from a Historical Perspective |
| The discourse on civilization and the practice of power relations continually overlapped in pre-modern East Asia long before the arrival of western-style imperialism. As is well known, China had been a strong state sufficient to claim its geopolitical dominance as the Great Imperium (中國 Zhongguo) and cultural influence as the Center of Civilization (中華 Zhonghua) vis-à-vis other neighboring areas of East Asia.
Meanwhile, Chosôn Korea (1392-1910) was active in appropriating the Confucian cultural policies to a civilized order of its own. Ming China (1368-1644) sought peace with Chosôn in cultural solidarity while downgrading their surrounding Mongolian and Manchurian contenders to barbarians. The emergence of the Manchurian Qing (1644-1911) China did little to disfigure the above regional dynamics linking (geo-) politics and civilization. In this context, I explore how the Chosôn court and elites re-imagined the historicity of their own Confucian tradition by valorizing the erstwhile Ming, and consolidated their dominance, based on the traditional status system, over Chosôn against the rest of the Chosôn society as well as Qing China. Instead of the top-down paradigm of Chinese originality versus non-Chinese replication, my presentation illuminates the degree to which the pre-modern Korean ruling elites were able to channel the influence of the Sino-centric world system and the Confucian civilization into the enhancement of their state legitimacy and cultural progress in the post-Ming era. This will capture one of the manners in which diverse human agencies outside of China fashioned a non-Chinese dimension of Pax Sinica and Sinophile trend in order to justify their practical engagements. |
| OCTOBER 22, 2007 |
| Monday, 12:30-1:30 pm |
| William H. Gates Hall, Room 115 |
| Professor Kuk Cho, College of Law, Seoul National University, Korea |
| Critical Controversies in Korean Criminal Law |
| Criminal law in post-democratization Korea has been fraught with controversy. There are at least three major areas of division reflecting conflicting views in the areas of morality, gender and politics. First, Korean criminal law is moralistic, including with respect to the criminalization of adultery and soft-core pornography. Second, the law is male-centered, including with respect to rape law. Third, Korean criminal law is state-dominated; examples include the National Security Act and the criminalization of conscientious objection to military service. A critical examination of these characteristics of Korean criminal law will reveal valuable lessons for Korea and other newly democratized societies.
The Asian Law Center of the University of Washington School of Law is pleased to host Professor Kuk Cho of Seoul National University’s College of Law, for an presentation and discussion of these issues. Prof. Cho has written and published extensively on Korean criminal law and other legal issues in both the U.S. and Korea. Prof. Cho obtained his S.J.D. and L.L.M. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley, and L.L.M. and L.L.B. degrees from Seoul National University. For additional information, please contact Prof. Yong-Sung Jonathan Kang (jonakang@u.washington.edu) Co-sponsored by the Asian Law Center and Center for Korea Studies, Jackson School of International Studies. |
| OCTOBER 17, 2007 |
| Wednesday, 3:30-5:00 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Dr. Jutae Lee, Professor, Kyunghee University, Korea, and Visiting Scholar, Center for Korea Studies, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington |
| The Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement and Its Implications |
| Dr. Jutae Lee is a member of the Korea Trade Commission and a professor at Kyung Hee University in Seoul where he conducts research in issues of foreign investment, corporate behavior, and free trade. Dr. Lee received a BA from Korea University, an MA in economics from Sogang University, Politics diplome from Ecole des Heutes Etudes Politique Paris in France, and a Doctorate in business administration from Kyung Hee University. He was awarded a Korean government medal for international trade contributions.
Dr. Lee will speak on the general contours of the Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement including the provisions of the agreement and the political clashes surrounding the negotiations and conclusion. Based on the experience of the FTA talks with the United States, Dr. Lee will present recommendations for the upcoming FTA talks between Korea and the European Union. |
2006-2007 Academic Year.
| JUNE 7, 2007 |
| Thursday, 3:00-4:30 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Hyunsik Min, Professor, Seoul National University and Visiting Scholar, Korea Studies Program, University of Washington |
| Understanding the Historical Development of Hangeul Writing Culture |
| Professor Min is a visiting scholar at the University of Washington from the Department of Korean Language Education, Seoul National University in Korea. He studies Korean linguistics with a focus on Medieval Korean, Korean pedagogical grammar, and Korean orthography. He received his Ph.D. from Seoul National University. His doctoral thesis is entitled “A Study of Adverbs in Medieval Korean.” He has taught at Kangneung National University (1984-1991) and Sookmyung Women’s University (1991-2000). He held the office of chief of the Division of Korean Language Standardization (1997-1999) in the National Korean Language Research Institute. He has been teaching at Seoul National University since 2000. |
| MAY 2, 2007 |
| Wednesday, 3:30-5:00 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Namhee Lee, Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California at Los Angeles |
| The Return of the Ghost: The “Park Chung Hee Syndrome” and Historians in South Korea |
| Namhee Lee is an assistant professor of modern Korean history at UCLA and her recent book, The Making of Minjung Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, is forthcoming (Cornell University Press, 2007). She is currently working on a book project entitled Social Memory and Public Production of Historical Knowledge in South Korea, which explores production of historical knowledge outside established academic institutions in the last two decades, examining the debates, tensions, and exchanges generated from historical films, novels, exhibitions, festivals, historical restorations (or destructions), and civic historical movements. |
| APRIL 12, 2007 |
| Thursday, 3:30-5:00 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Robert Buswell, Professor of Chinese and Korean Buddhism, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and Director, Center for Buddhist Studies, University of California at Los Angeles |
| Korean Buddhist Journeys to Lands Real and Imagined |
| Robert E. Buswell, Jr. is professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures and founding director of the Center for Buddhist Studies and Center for Korean Studies at UCLA. He has published thirteen books and forty articles on various aspects of the Chinese, Korean, and Indian traditions of Buddhism, including Cultivating Original Enlightenment: Wonhyo’s Exposition of the Vajrasamadhi-Sutra, Tracing Back the Radiance: Chinul’s Korean Way of Zen, The Formation of Ch’an Ideology in China and Korea, and The Zen Monastic Experience: Buddhist Practice in Contemporary Korea. He is widely considered to be the premier Western scholar on Korean Buddhism and one of the top specialists on the East Asian Zen tradition. Buswell also served as editor-in-chief of the two-volume Encyclopedia of Buddhism (Macmillan Reference, 2004), editor of Religions of Korea in Practice (Princeton, 2007), and coeditor (with Donald S. Lopez, Jr.) of the forthcoming one-million word Dictionary of Buddhism (Doubleday). Before returning to academe, Buswell spent seven years as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, China, and Korea. He was recently elected vice-president/president-elect of the Association for Asian Studies.
Professor Buswell will explore some of the representative examples of Korean Buddhist travel writing and the process that led to the domestication of pilgrim sites on the Korean peninsula. Travel for religious training, missionary propagation, and devotional pilgrimage has been an integral part of Buddhism since virtually the inception of the religion. Korean monks traveled frequently to the East Asian Buddhist Mecca of the Chinese mainland and a few undertook the even more arduous pilgrimage to the Buddhist homeland of India. Much as with overseas travel, stories of travel to Buddhist imaginaries, such as the Dragon King’s undersea palace, helped to break down the spatial and temporal barriers separating Korea from mainstream continental Buddhism. |
| MARCH 28, 2007 |
| Wednesday, 3:30-5:00 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Simone Chun, Visiting Scholar, Korea Studies Program, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington |
| Globalization and Democratization: The Making of the Korean Democratic Labor Party (KDLP), 2000-2006 |
| Dr. Chun received her Ph.D. in 2005 from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has taught at St. Michael’s College and Grand Valley State University, and will be joining the faculty of Suffolk University as an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Fall of 2007.
Dr. Chun will present an analysis of the emergence of the labor party in South Korea. Based in part on extensive personal interviews with union members and labor party officials, her research demonstrates that the emergence of the Korean labor party is a response to the inability of liberal democracy to address class-based distributional conflicts that emerge during periods of globalization. Her talk will also include findings from her current work-in-progress, Empire and Revolt: an Analysis of the Proposed Korea-US Free Trade Agreements. |
| FEBRUARY 26, 2007 |
| Monday, 2:00-3:30 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Mark Caprio, Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan |
| Which Land is My Land?: Japan-Based Koreans and the Repatriation Question, 1945-1948 |
| Mark Caprio earned his doctorate at the University of Washington in history in 2001. He currently teaches at Rikkyo University in Tokyo. Caprio has published articles on Japan’s colonial policy and practice in Korea, Korean repatriation under U.S. occupation rule, and the DPRK nuclear crisis. He is currently completing a manuscript on Japan’s assimilation policy in Korea. |
FEBRUARY 21, 2007
Wednesday, 1:30-3:30 pm
Thomson Hall, Room 317
Andrew Kim, Associate Professor, International Studies, Korea University and Visiting Professor, Center for Korean Studies, University of California at Berkeley
The Making of a Multiethnic Society in South Korea
Andrew Kim received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Toronto and is Associate Professor in the Division of International Studies at Korea University. For the academic year of 2006-2007, he is Visiting Professor in the Center for Korean Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. His primary research interests pertain to cultural studies, the sociology of religion, social change, sociology of work, and comparative sociology. His articles have appeared in Social Indicators Research, Social History, Asian Survey, Social Compass, Sociology of Religion, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Review of Religious Research, and Korea Journal among others. He is currently completing revisions on two book-length manuscripts, tentatively entitled “21st Century Korea: The Impact of Rapid Industrialization, Modernization, and Globalization” and “The Christianization of South Korea: Religious and Non-Religious Factors in Conversion.”
NOVEMBER 20, 2006
Monday, 3:30-5:00 pm
Thomson Hall, Room 317
Yong-Chool Ha, Professor, Department of International Relations, Seoul National University
Late Industrialization, the State, and Social Change: The Emergence of NeoFamilism in South Korea
Dr. Ha is a Professor in the Department of International Relations at Seoul National University. He received his Ph.D. in Politicial Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been a Visiting Professor with the Jackson School Korea Studies Program since 2004. Dr. Ha is the author of several books, including “Late Industrialization and the Dynamics of the Strong State in South Korea: Debureaucratization and Hollowing Out,” (Seoul University Press, 2006), which has been nominated for the best book of the year by the Korean Political Science Association.
OCTOBER 31, 2006
Tuesday, 4:30-5:30 pm
Thomson Hall, Room 317
Dr. Sung Young Kim, Professor of Theology, Sungkyul University and Visiting Scholar, University of Washington
An Evening of Comparative Poetry of Dahyung and Mogwol
Dr. Sung Young Kim has been a Professor of Theology at Sungkyul University since 1989. He was the fourth President of Sungkyul University from 2002 to 2006, and is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Washington. He received his Ph.D. in Systemic Theology from the Korea Baptist Theological University in 1996, and a Literary Degree in Contemporary Literature from Korea University in 2005.
Dr. Kim is a Theologian, whose dedication to Theology has led him to hold positions such as the Vice President and Director of the Korea Evangelical Theological Society (2002-Present) and President of the Korea Presidents’ Association of Theological Universities (2004-2006). Ever the philanthropist, Dr. Kim has also served on the Originator and Executive Committee of the Commission to Help North Korean Refugees since 1997, and as Goodwill Ambassador to the Korea Food for the Hungry International since 2004.
His poetic star began to rise in 1972 when he was chosen as a “recommended poet” by Hyundai Moonhak, the oldest literary magazine in Korea. Since then, Dr. Kim has been a member of the Korean Writers’ Association, the Korea Poets Association, the International P.E.N. Club Korea Center and the Korea Christian Literary Association. His poetry titles include Earth 1978, Baek-Ui-Jong-Koon (Epic of Admiral Lee’s Great Activity of National Salvation at 15th Century War of Korea-Japan) 1979, The Thorn Bird 1988, Star! Let Your Light Shine 1993 and Beautiful People’s University 2002. His literary titles include translations of Nikos Kazantzakis’s The Greek Passion and Saint Francis. He has also published extensively on Theology. Dr. Kim is a 1977 recipient of the “Prize of Korea Literature” awarded by the Ministry of Culture and Information in Korea government.
Dr. Kim will be reading and comparing poetry written by Kim Hyun Seung (Dahyung) and Park Young Jong (Mogwol).
2005-2006 Academic Year
| MAY 30, 2006 |
| Tuesday, 4:30-6:00 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Hongbae Choi, Professor, National Korea Maritime University; Visiting Scholar, School of Marine Affairs, University of Washington |
| The International Law of Territorial Acquisition in the Korea-Japan Island Dispute |
| Hongbae Choi has been a Visiting Scholar in the School of Marine Affairs at the University of Washington since 2004. He also spent a year at Waseda University in Japan as a visiting scholar between 1998 and 1999. Educated in International Law and Maritime Law in Korean Universities, he currently holds a professorship at National Korea Maritime University. He has maintained research interests in International Law of the Sea; International Marine and Fishery Policy and Law between Japan, Korea and China, WTO Consistency of Trade Policies in Maritime Sectors regarding Fishery Subsidies- Tariff Negotiation and Anti-Dumping, as well as , FTA Korean Maritime Trade Policy and domestic law, with a focus on Customs Law, Fishery and Conservation Act, Environmental Law and Policy. His books include The International Law, printed in Seoul by Bobkyong, 2004, Law of the Sea, in Seoul by Jisan, 2002, and Marine and Fishery Policy and Law, Seoul: Jisan, 2002.
Territorial issues have been the cause of many international disputes between Japan and Korea. Korean title to Dokdo is supported by a wide variety of historical and documentary evidence while Japan also claims Dokdo (Takeshima) is an integral part of Japan’s sovereign territory. Accordingly, the occupation of Dokdo (Takeshima) by Korea is an illegal occupation undertaken with absolutely no basis whatsoever in international law.
By the middle of the 17th century, Japan had established sovereignty of Dokdo (Takeshima) based on effective rule. After 1905, Japan’s claim to sovereignty of Dokdo (Takeshima) was reaffirmed as a modern nation state based on a Cabinet decision, and in this way Dokdo (Takeshima) has since been effectively ruled by Japan. Prior to the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace with Japan, no documents represent final decisions concerning the attribution of Japanese sovereign territory, and it is clear that Dokdo (Takeshima) is not excluded from Japanese territory. The statement issued following the Cairo Conference in 1943 stipulated that, “Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed.” In particular, the reference to “territories which she has taken by violence and greed” does not apply to Dokdo (Takeshima), which is an integral part of Japan’s sovereign territory. So, on what basis are Korea’s claims to Dokdo Island? If both countries cannot solve this dispute, we must attempt to solve it.
Co-sponsored by the Korea Studies Program and Japan Studies Program. |
| MAY 8, 2006 |
| Monday, 2:00-3:00 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| George W. Long, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer, LIM Advisors Limited and LIM Group, Hong Kong (offices in Beijing, Mauritius, Stamford and Tokyo) |
| Twenty Years of Experience in the Financial Industry in Asia |
| George W. Long, CFA, is an alumnus of the University of Washington. He completed his B.A. in Korea Studies in 1977, M.A. in East Asia Studies in 1979, and M.B.A. in 1981 at the University of Washington. In 1995, he founded and became managing director of LIM Advisors Limited in Hong Kong. He was previously Chief Investment Officer of Gartmore Asia and head of the Korean office of Indosuez W.I.Carr. He went through the executive management and credit program at Manufacturers Hanover Bank (now part of JP Morgan Chase) and then worked in the Asian Division. Mr. Long received the Thomas L. Hansberger Leadership in Global Investing Award for his contributions to the practice of global investment management. He is past president and founder of the Hong Kong Society of Financial Analysts, a professional association with more than 1,900 members and one of AIMR’s largest member societies. Mr. Long is also chairman of the Alternative Investment Management Association (Hong Kong and China chapter) and a past member of the AIMR Board of Governors. He grew up in Korea, where his father established the Korea Investment Trust, and has lived all over the world, though he maintains a home in the U.S. on the East coast.
Mr. Long will discuss his education and more than twenty years of professional experience in the financial industry throughout Asia, as well as, his experience in founding and managing investment companies. We invite those interested in financial or business careers in Asia to attend this informal and informative discussion. |
| APRIL 27, 2006 |
| Thursday, 6:30-8:30 pm, Reception 6:30-7:00 pm |
| Physics-Astronomy Auditorium A102 |
| Ko Un, Korea’s most renowned, prolific and revered poet, essayist, novelist, editor, and literary critic |
| Poetry Reading by Ko Un |
| Since 1994, Ko Un has been Professor of Korean Literature at Kyunggi University, Seoul, Korea. In 1992, he served as the President of the Association of Writers for Korean Literature. Born in 1933 in Kunsan, North Cholla Province of southwestern Korea, in 1952 he became a Buddhist monk and devoted himself to the practice of Son (Zen.) In 1957, he became editor-in-chief for the Bulkyo Shinmun (Buddhist Daily) in Seoul. This award winning poet has become well traveled after surviving political difficulties in the fortieth decade of his life which followed closely on his active service in the Korea Association for National Unity and Korean Association for Human Rights. His poetry titles include Pyan Gamsung (Other World Sensibility) 1962 collection, Munui-maul-e gaso (Arriving at Munui Village) 1974, Mt. Paekdu (7 vols.) 1977-1995, The Sound of My Waves (English translation) 1992 published by Cornell University, and Beyond Self (Zen poems in English translation) in 1997 published by Parallax Press, Berkeley. This final volume was commemorated by a poetry reading, together with poet Gary Snyder, at the Black Oak Book Shop on the UC Berkley campus. Honors awarded to him include the Manhae Poetry Award, 1998, Daesan Literary Award, 1994, Central Cultural Award 1991, and Korean Literature Awards, 1987 and 1974.
Reading of The Three Way Tavern, a new book by Ko Un & translation by Clare You and Richard Silberg, published by UC Press.
This collection, an essential sampling of his poems from the last decade of the twentieth century, offers in deft translation, as lively and demotic as the original, the off-beat humor, mystery, and mythic power of his work for a wide audience of English-speaking readers. It showcases the work of a man whom Allen Ginsberg has called “a magnificent poet, a combination of Buddhist cognoscente, passionate political libertarian, and naturalist historian,” who Gary Snyder has said is “a real-world poet!” who “outfoxes the Old Masters and the young poets both,” and who Lawrence Ferlinghetti has described as “no doubt the greatest living Korean Zen poet today.” The University of California Press
Reservations are not required.
Co-sponsored by the UW Korea Studies Program and the East Asia Center. |
| FEBRUARY 2, 2006 |
| Thursday, 3:30-5:00 pm |
| Communication 226 |
| Sung-Jae Choi, Professor, Department of Social Welfare, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea and Director, Seoul National University Press |
| National Policy on Aging and Policy Issues in South Korea |
| Dr. Sung-Jae Choi is Professor of Social Welfare at Seoul National University, Korea. He earned his Master of Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri and his Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He served as Chairperson, Asia/Oceania Region, International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics during 2001-2005. He also served as the President of the Korean Council on Social Welfare Education, the President of the Korean Academy of Social Welfare, and the President of the Korea Gerontological Society. He is currently a member of the editorial boards of the Australian Journal on Ageing, Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work, Geriatrics and Gerontology International. He has been widely involved in government policy-making on aging: served as advisor to the Minister of Health and Welfare; member of the Long-term Care Policy Planning Committee, Ministry of Health and Welfare; chairperson of the Social Welfare Review Committee, Seoul Metropolitan Government; and currently serves as a member of the Presidential Committee on Low-Fertility and Aging Society. He is author of Research Methods in Social Welfare, and Data Analysis Methods in Social Welfare, and co-author of books on Welfare of the Elderly, Social Welfare Administration, and he is also chief editor of several books, including Social Problems and Social Welfare, Ageing in Korea.
The rate of population aging in Korea is unprecedented compared to that of other countries. In 2000, the rate was only 7 % for the elderly population, which is projected to reach 23% in 2030 and 34% in 2050. Korean society, which has been one of the four rising dragons in Asia in economic development, experienced an economic crisis in the late 1990s and only achieved $14,000 in terms of GDP per capita in 2005. In response to such rapid population aging, Korean society needs to have a comprehensive longer-term policy plan reflecting lessons from the experience of population aging in advanced welfare states. In the light of rapid population aging in Korea, this presentation will provide an overview profile of elderly Koreans and the social context of policy-making, examine national policies on aging, and address recent policy developments, issues and prospects. |
| JANUARY 9, 2006 |
| Monday, 3:30-5:00 pm |
| Thomson Hall, Room 317 |
| Won-Kyung Lee, Professor, Department of English Education, Sangmyung University, Korea; Exchange Visiting Scholar, Korea Studies Program, The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington |
| A Semantic Analysis of Case Markings and Emotive Verbs in Korean |
| Won-Kyung Lee is a professor, Department of English Education, Sangmyung University, Seoul, Korea and a program committee member, 9th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, 2005. She is a graduate of Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea (BA, MA), University of Hawaii at Manoa (MA in Linguistics), Seongkwunkwan University, Seoul, Korea (PhD in Linguistics). She has published many articles in prestigious journals. Her recent paper, An Analysis on the Argument Structure and Meaning of Perception Verbs in Korea, is presented at 8th International Cognitive Linguistic Conference, Spain, and Korean Honorifics by Confucian Cultural Traditions and English Translation, at The Institute of East-Asian Traditional Cultural Communication Between Korea and China. This study is to present syntactic and semantic behavior of case markers occurring with emotive verbs in Korean. In their syntactic and semantic behavior, Korean emotive verbs are ambivalent between action and stative types of verb. The nature of this ambivalence will be clarified in this paper. This paper will also be devoted to the delimitation of the scope of emotive verbs. Furthermore, the transitivity and intransitivity associated with emotive verbs will be discussed in relation to case markers. In examining the semantic behavior of case markers, one of the problems is how to handle differences in meaning. These differences occur not only at a basic lexical level but also occurring to various contexts, situations and affective meanings. |