Korea
South Korea witnessed the cementing of the two-party political system and the big global corporate domination during the first decade of the 2000s that arguably sealed the triumph of neoliberalism and Francis Fukuyama’s conservative mantra of the “end of history.” Lost has been the ethical urgency, in other words, that places the past in the context of the Hegelian continuum of humankind’s progression toward its Utopian ideals. As argued throughout my book Virtual Hallyu: Korean Cinema of the Global Era, South Korea, despite its ongoing political crisis marred by the recalcitrant presence of...
Come Celebrate the Year of the Rabbit at the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University Spring Festival Reception! For More Information 20110208ceaspringfestival.jpg
On November 23rd 2010, North Korea surprisingly attacked Yeonpyeong Island in South Korea, which caused a few casualties including two civilian deaths. Meanwhile, the authoritarian regime seeks to establish a smooth power succession from KIM Jong IL, the current dictator, to his youngest son KIM Jong Un, which, if successful, will amount to the third generational transfer of power in the KIM family. How is North Korea’s belligerent behavior to South Korea and the rest of the world, which is exemplified by the recent attack, related to its domestic politics? Will the Korean Peninsula...
The Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University (CEAS), with generous support from a United States Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center Grant, is pleased to present a day-long workshop for educators which will examine both the historical and cultural context of Korea’s international experience in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as the important role the Korean Peninsula plays in contemporary global affairs. Participants will engage in both content sessions and pedagogy discussions on the use of maps, films and other resources in the classroom. The...
The abrupt end to the long tenure of the LDP government in Japan reminded observers of East Asian international relations of the possible tensions between electoral outcomes and long-standing foreign policy commitments. The DPJ’s 2009 electoral commitment to relocating the Futenma Air Station – a deviation from the 2006 bilateral agreement - epitomizes such tension. While the DPJ tried to attract electoral support in Okinawa and cement non-LDP parties’ electoral pacts, the Hatoyama administration faced almost non-existent room for diplomatic bargaining and eventually encountered an erosion of...
Western research on Korean nationalism—for example, Shin Gi-wook’s Ethnic Nationalism in Korea (2006) often neglects aspects of Korean cultural nationalism, while accounts of Korean cultural nationalism rarely discuss the salient role of language in Korean nationalism. In recent work (“North and South Korea,” in Language and National Identity in Asia, 2007) Professor King has asserted that discussions of Korean “linguistic nationalism”—both North and South of the 38th parallel—are better recast as “script nationalism.”In this presentation, he will focus on a particular offshoot of Korean...
The contentious relationship between modernism and realism has arguably defined Korean literary history throughout the twentieth century and into the present. In this paper I argue that the literary modernism that rose to prominence in 1930s colonial Korea was neither an escapist aesthetic practice severed from the socio-political context of its production nor a derivative and partial “alternative” to a purportedly original European modernism. Instead, I advance the thesis that Korean modernism, particularly in its linguistic relationship with the “real,” engaged in complex ways with the...
It has been widely hypothesized that modernization breeds political development. Although political scientists have focused on grand theory building, one is left wondering if the speed of economic development or modernization matters, or if it is just a threshold where factors amenable to democracy start to emerge. In countries that achieve rapid economic development and start the democratic transition process in a short time period, the pace of political recruitment (i.e., the quality) may not keep up with economic achievement. Because the quality of political candidates does not keep up...
The Visualizing Cultures project and the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University are pleased to announce a two-day academic conference focused on the relationship between visual imagery and social change in modern Asia entitled, “Visualizing Global Asia at the Turn of the 20th Century.” This will be one of the first academic conferences devoted to “image-driven scholarship” and teaching about Asia in the modern world. We have selected scholars of history, art history, history of photography, and history of technology specializing in China, Korea, Japan, United States, Europe and the...
Come enjoy the festivities from 4:30 to 6:30 PM as the Council on East Asian Studies kicks off the fall term!
This talk examines changes in mobility laws regarding Koreans in the late nineteenth century and the unintended consequences of these changes. Whereas movement was previously controlled by a host of factors, such as one’s vocation, class, lineage, or religion, in the late nineteenth century, nationality became the primary factor in determining the terms of one’s movement between Korea and Russia - one was defined either as a “Korean” subject or a “Russian” subject. Though the new laws and passports clearly demarcated the one’s legal status, levels of enforcement and comprehension on the part...
Things, or physical objects, have been a subject matter of representation in many conventions. “Depicting things” (yongwu or eibutsu) became an important literary genre in traditional China and Japan, and has generated strong interest in modern scholarship. In contrast, things were seldom a self-content category in pictorial art, even though they frequently appeared and played a significant role in paintings about figures, landscape, and still life. Moreover, things as implements were delineated in illustrated manuals for ritual, medical or other pragmatic purposes, but they have not yet...
Come explore two documentaries from East Asia about immigration and migration! Two screenings as part of the PIER Global Film Series 2009. Screenings are free and open to the public.Seoul TrainProduced and Directed by Lisa Sleeth and Jim Butterworth, 2005 (55 min., English Subtitles)The gripping documentary by Incite Productions, Inc. into the life and death of North Koreans as they try to escape their homeland.SEOUL TRAIN, with its riveting footage of a secretive “underground railroad,” delves into the complex geopolitics behind this growing and potentially explosive humanitarian crisis....
Come celebrate the start of the fall term and meet colleagues and friends interested in East Asian Studies!
Crossroads of Youth (청춘의 십자로)Directed by Ahn Jong-hwa (1934, 70min, 35mm)The Korea Society,The Council on East Asian Studies, The Film Studies Program, The Yale Film Society and Korean American Students of Yale are pleased to present Korea’s oldest surviving silent film, Crossroads of Youth (Cheonchun’s Sipjaro), at a special screening accompanied by live musicians and narrators (byeonsa) of the type found in Korean theaters of the 1930s. Released in 1934 and recently digitally restored, Crossroads of Youth is a wrenching family tragedy set against the backdrop of Korea’s jarring...
This project looks at the original intentions - spoken and unspoken - behind the Truman and Eisenhower administration’s decisions to create a network of bilateral (as opposed to multilateral) alliances in East Asia, including Korea.
Heekyoung Cho’s paper takes up Hyon Chin gon’s (1900-43) adaptation of a Chekhov short story. It demonstrates both the process of Hyon’s creative engagement with Chekhov in the mid-1920s, and also shows the interpenetration of translation and creation, and literary and journalistic discourse at the time. In particular, Suni, Hyon’s female protagonist, who is a child bride, burns down her husband’s house to escape her unendurable marriage with an older man. Through this character, Hyon was able to link female arson with resistance to the institution of young marriage, which was a hotly debated...
This lecture will be delivered in Chinese. “明代傳奇小說在韓國的傳播–以<剪燈新話>爲中心” The lecture focuses on the reception of Chinese tales in Korea, especially on that of the Jiandeng Xinhua by the early Ming writer Qu You 瞿佑 (1347-1433). Viewed historically, the mutual influences and cultural exchanges between Ming China and Korea are extremely important. According to contemporary reports in Korea, the reception of the Ming tales among the Korean readers was enormously enthusiastic. One of the purposes of this lecture is to discuss this interesting literary phenomenon.
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