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Korea Program Winter 2023 Courses

November 8, 2022

Winter registration is underway! Join Center for Korea Studies faculty this Winter for a diverse range of coursework.

JSIS A 466/566: Comparative Politics and Korea Studies

Instructor: Yong-Chool Ha

Date and Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:30-4:20

Credits: 5

Course Description

Approaches Korean politics, political economy, and society from a comparative perspective. Examples of major comparative questions based on the Korean case include democratization, strong state dynamics, civil society, and the impact of globalization.

JSIS A 446/583: Modern Korean History

Instructor: Hajin Jun

Date and Time: Mondays and Wednesday 10:30-12:20pm

Credits: 5

Course Description

This course traces complex social, cultural, and political developments that transformed Korea during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Topics include late Choson reforms, changing gender norms, national identity, colonial state and society, territorial division, and democratization. Attention to diversity of Korean experiences, as well as the interplay of local dynamics and global forces in the peninsula.

KOREAN 416 A: Readings in Korean Literature and Culture

Instructor: Heekyoung Cho

Date and Time: Mondays and Wednesdays 9:30-11:20am

Credits: 5

Course Description

Reading and discussion of selected modern literary texts and other cultural texts in the original language.

KOREAN 365 A: Korean Cinema: History and Aesthetics

Instructor: Ungsan Kim

Date and Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays 12:30-2:20pm

Credits: 5

Course Description

Topics this course will cover include the Korean War and melodrama, military dictatorship and censorship, democratization and film activism, film festivals, feminist and queer cinema, North Korean cinema, Hallyu, digital cinema, and many others. To better understand the narrative and formal specificities of a wide array of Korean films, students will also learn historical vicissitudes of the Korean nation-states, including the liberation from Japanese colonial rule, the division system, military dictatorship, the democratic movements in 1987, and the emergence of Hallyu, or the Korean Wave. By reading each film along with its historical and cultural backgrounds, students will understand how the historical transformations and human affairs in the region affected thematic and artistic representations on screen.

Korean Language Courses

If you’re hoping to expand your Korean language skills this Winter, click here for UW’s full roster of Korean language course offerings.