Korea Institute Newsletter J U N E 2 0 1 2
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Korea Institute Newsletter J U N E 2 0 1 2 Director’s Foreword IN THIS ISSUE Greetings! ed his analysis of the current Director’s Foreword 1 state of affairs on the Korean The past year has seen a great Peninsula. Presentations in deal of activity at the Korea In- the coming months will in- Transnational 2 stitute. We are in the first year clude Dr Gaphee Ko of Humanities for of a generous five-year grant Hanshin University, present- Korean Studies from the Academy of Korean ing on feminism and glocal Project Updates Studies, awarded in the catego- activism on 16 July. ry of “Leading Overseas Univer- sity Program for Korean Stud- Korean Studies faculty are Research Students 4 ies,” and that funding has ena- responsible for two interna- bled us to organize and present tional conferences held at the shop of the Korea Studies As- Publications 8 a number of activities that have ANU. Dr Ruth Barraclough sociation of Australasia (KSAA) raised awareness and enhanced brought together scholars of funded by the Korea Founda- knowledge of Korea, its history literature and history for a tion, to be held in November of Upcoming Lecture 9 and its culture among the aca- conference entitled “Red Love 2012; and the 8th Biennial Con- demic community and the com- and Proletarian Femme Fa- ference of the KSAA will take Past Conferences 10 munity at large. Distinguished tales” in November 2011. place in June of 2013. and Events scholars have come to campus, Professor Hyaeweol Choi, in presenting their insights on a collaboration with Professor Our faculty and students have variety of issues related to the Margaret Jolly of Gender and been successful and produc- Upcoming 12 tive. Over the course of the last Conferences and culture, history or current events Cultural Studies and Pacific of Korea. Dr Seungsook Moon Studies, is currently preparing year the three core faculty have Events of Sociology at Vassar College, a conference called “Para- produced or published a total of Dr Gregory Evon of the Univer- doxes of Domesticity: Chris- three books and numerous arti- Former Student at 14 sity of New South Wales and Dr tian Missionaries and Women cles. Three of our undergradu- the ANU John Treat of Yale University in Asia and the Pacific,” to be ate students received scholar- offered presentations of their held in August 2012. Our ships from Yonsei University to study for one year. Postgradu- New Postdoctoral 15 recent research studies, Dr faculty will also be involved in Namhee Lee led a three-day the planning and preparations ate student Lauren Richardson Fellow at Korea master class in critical Asian for three additional major received a Prime Minister En- Institute studies, and His Excellency events to be held at ANU: the deavour award, which supports Taeyong Cho, Ambassador for Korea Update, 11-12 October, her extended fieldwork in Korea News and 16 the Republic of Korea, present- 2012; the postgraduate work- and Japan. The program has Announcements also instituted a regular biweek- ly research meeting at which postgraduate students present their writing and discuss their research with the faculty and each other. The grant from the AKS has also allowed us to fund two PhD and one MA postgraduate students, all of whom will begin their programs of study in the second semester of 2012. The- se new members are certain to add to the intellectual life of our program, and we look forward Our AKS team (from left to right): Dr Roald Maliangkay, Prof Hyaeweol Choi, Dr Geng to welcoming them into our Song, Dr Ruth Barraclough and Prof Tessa Morris-Suzuki circle. P A G E 2 Transnational Humanities in Korean Studies Updates The Transnational Humanities in Korean Studies Project was launched in 2011 with generous support from the Acad- emy of Korean Studies. It is composed of four research groups whose foci range from gender history in modern Korea to the "Korean wave" and grassroots movements in Northeast Asia. The following summarizes activities of the groups. A New Modern History of Women in Korea: A Asia and the Pacific all together. Our team is bringing together scholars of Asian and Transnational Approach Pacific Studies to conduct a comparative Prof Hyaeweol Choi, Principal Investigator investigation with a focus on some key concepts, such as “domesticity,” “mother- key site for investigation. This research hood” and “selfhood” as analytical nodes, team aims to investigate the ways in teasing out both the shared and the dis- which Korea’s interactions with the West tinctive experiences Asian and Western and Japan transformed gender images women had in their interactions within their and bodily practices, focusing on the particular context of local and global cir- period from 1876 to the end of Korea’s cumstances. colonization by Japan in 1945. An international conference centered on The evolution of gendered modernity one of these themes is being organized by took place in a transnational context. Hyaeweol Choi of the Korea Institute and Western women missionaries were key Margaret Jolly of the ANU anthropology in transforming gender practices in Asia program. The conference, entitled, “Para- and the Pacific, challenging some of doxes of Domesticity: Missionaries and standing practices and reinforcing oth- Women in Asia and the Pacific,” will be ers. We explore the role of Western held at the Australian National University Protestant missionary women in the from 8 to 10 August 2012. This confer- history of modern womanhood in Korea, ence will bring together eminent scholars China, Japan and the Pacific. While on gender history, anthropology and litera- there have been significant research ture with particular focus on Western mis- studies focusing on those women in- sionary enterprise. During and after the As part of the AKS grant, we have iden- volved in individual countries, very little conference, we will further develop plans tified the transnational nature of gen- research has systematically examined toward publishing an edited volume based dered modernity in Korea within a the complex relationship between West- on presented papers at the conference. broader Asian and global context as a ern missionary women and women in Grassroots Cross-Border Cooperation in Northeast Asia: Korea’s Role as Network Hub Prof Tessa Morris-Suzuki In October 2011, Tessa Morris-Suzuki gaged in cross-border reconciliation activ- made a research visit to Japan to collect ities. In addition, she visited grassroots material for this project. She consulted groups established in the Fukushima with Japan-based scholars including area following the March 11, 2011 earth- Prof. Kurihara Akira (Meiji University), quake, tsunami and nuclear accident, to Professor Kang Sang-jung (University of learn more about their cross-border net- Tokyo) and Professor Murakami Yuichi working activities. In April 2012 she trav- (Fukushima University). She also trav- eled to Seoul for a meeting with activists elled to Hokkaido to conduct interviews at the Center for Peace Museum, where with members of a social movement she collected extensive material about engaged in collaboration with Korea to their networking activities with other address unresolved problems of war- Asian countries. time forced labour, and to Sendai to interview a Zainichi Korean activist en- P A G E 3 Transnational Humanities in Korean Studies Updates Broken Voices: Folksongs from the North in South Korea Dr Roald Maliangkay Roald Maliangkay is currently private collections of old pho- to, as well as compared and working on rewriting his PhD tographs of Korea for aca- linked to those of other imag- thesis for publication in 2013 demic use worldwide. The es, the collections will gain (working title: “Broken Voices: name, logo and layout were considerably in value. Folksongs from the North in conceived based on the con- South Korea”). He is also cept of the website inviting preparing a special journal private collectors world- issue on masculinities and wide. Existing open-source pop culture together with Dr image management services Geng Song, a project for do not allow the further devel- opment of the metadata as- The Pictori logo (above) which he visited Yanji in Feb- was designed by renowned ruary 2012 to set up a wide sociated with digital images. Dutch artist Joost Swarte, survey among local university The Pictori project seeks to who created an image students. remedy this by offering a free based on the concept of a and easy-to-use online image St. Bernard carrying the With funding support through management environment, tools to save what in this the large grant that the AKS where scholars and lay en- case are collections of old has given the Korea Institute, thusiasts can share their col- images of Korea. Roald is working on establish- lections of Korean images ing a website called Pictori, with others. By having their which will host and manage metadata checked and added The Korean Wave and Chinese Korea’s Early Communist Women Masculinities: A Pilot Study Dr Ruth Barraclough Amongst Chinese International Students in Australia North Korean history has conventionally been ap- Dr Geng Song proached via state for- mation narratives, political Geng Song and Frederick on the interaction between biography, or analyses of Lee (ANU PhD candidate) Korean and Chinese popu- art and propaganda. This are conducting a pilot study lar culture in terms of the project tells a far more amongst young Chinese construction of masculinity. intimate, contingent story nationals who are under- of early North Korean soci- graduate students in Aus- ety and the people who, of a book that Ruth Barra- tralia. They aim to empiri- for a time, led one of its clough is co-editing with cally examine the popularity key institutions, the Wom- Paula Rabnowitz and and impact of the “Korean en’s League.