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History 292/392 The Two Koreas

Winter 2009 Mon 1:15–3:05pm Classroom 260–001

Professor: Yumi Moon Building 200 (Lane/History Corner), Office 228 Phone: (650) 723–2992 Email: [email protected] Office Hours: Wed 1:00–3:00 pm., and by appointment

Course Description

The history of the two Koreas began in 1945, when the United States and Soviet Union agreed to divide the country along the 38th parallel and to occupy North and South separately. This division had a great impact on Korea’s decolonization process and resulted in the outbreak of the Korean War. The war quickly developed into the first international war after World War II and completed the regime of the Cold War in East Asia. After the war the two Koreas took dramatically different historical paths, and the nation’s division is now comprehensive and internalized among the residents of the two Koreas. This system of the two Koreas survived the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s but is now entering a crucial historical stage toward its fundamental transformation or even its dissolution.

This course will examine major themes and scholarly works to understand the rise of the two Koreas and their subsequent historical developments. Themes will include the historical and ideological origins of the division, the impact of Japanese colonial rule, the Korean War, the ideas of key North and South Korean leaders, and the consolidation of the two different states into North and South after the Korean War.

The structure of this colloquium will be divided into three chronological periods: the colonial origins of the nation’s division (1910–45), the Korean War and the involvements of international powers (1945–53), and the consolidation of the two different states in the aftermath of the war (1953–).

This colloquium will also have one analytical focus: the reconsideration of Bruce Cuming’s seminal work, The Origins of the Korean War. Cumings provided a comprehensive and authoritative account of the origins of the war, its outbreak, and the factors involved in its escalation into the international war. He called the Korean War “a civil war” and criticized the United States foreign policy toward Korea between 1945 and 1950. His thesis is based on the assumption that Korea in 1945 was “revolutionary.” We will revisit Cuming’s major arguments and examine scholarly debate that his work has generated for the past few decades. This will help us to explore a new paradigm and 2 historical questions in order to understand the rise and consolidation of the two Koreas and the prospect of their reunification.

Requirements

Grading: Class Participation 50%; Presentation 10%, Two Response Papers 10%, In- Class Discussion 30% Final Research Paper 50%; Research Prospectus 5%, Progress Report 15%, Final Paper 30%

Class Participation: This is a weekly two-hour seminar centered on discussion and debate. You will be expected to complete all the assigned readings and participate actively in each week’s seminar. For the missing classes due to the national holidays on Jan. 19 (Martin Luther King Day, Jr., Day) and Feb. 16 (Presidents’ Day), you are required to submit two assignments to make up the classes. If you want to discuss the readings for Feb. 16, you can meet me during my office hours or arrange a separate time for the discussion.

1) Each week, one student will present brief comments and her or his questions for discussion on the assigned readings. Your presentations will be made at the beginning of class and should be 5–7 minutes long and no longer. You can select the weeks for your presentations in accordance with your interests or schedule. The number of students in the class will determine how many times each student presents comments and questions throughout the course.

2) You are required to watch the documentary film A State of Mind (produced and directed by Daniel Gordon, 94 min, 2005) and to submit a one-page (single spaced) response paper on the film. The response paper is due on Jan. 26 at the beginning of class.

3) You are required to submit a two-page (single spaced) response paper on the readings for Feb. 16. This is due on Feb. 23 at the beginning of class. Details will be provided later in the course.

4) Attendance is mandatory.

Final Research Paper: You will write one final research paper (12–13 pages long for undergraduates, and 15–17 for graduate students, both excluding bibliography). You can choose your research topics of your interest, but you should relate them to the course themes and the periods covered in the course.

1) You will have an individual session with the instructor in order to decide your topic for the final paper. The consultation will occur between Week 2 and Week 3 (Jan. 12–Jan. 23). You will submit a brief (1–2 pages single spaced) research 3

paper prospectus describing the question/issue to be researched, methodology, and sources on Feb. 9 at the beginning of class.

2) You will submit a detailed progress report of your research (7–9 pages double spaced) on Mar. 9 at the beginning of class. The final paper will be due on Mar. 20 (Fri) by 5 p.m. You can email your paper to me.

Required Books: The following is a schedule of our classes, and the assigned readings for each class. The books can be purchased at the Stanford Book Store. Readings marked # are available as Stanford Library e-books. All other readings will be available on reserve at the Green Library and on the coursework website.

Charles Armstrong, The North Korean Revolution 1945–1950 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003). Balázs Szlontai, Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005). Namhee Lee, The Making of Minjung (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007). Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, Famine in North Korea (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007).

Week 1 (Jan 12). Introduction and Orientation

Colonial Origins of the Nation’s Division and the Korean War

Jan 19.* Martin Luther King Day, Jr., Day (holiday, no class)

A State of Mind (produced and directed by Daniel Gordon, 94 min, 2005). RESERVED in Media/Microtext, Green Library Lower Level.

* Individual sessions with the instructor begin this week.

Week 2 (Jan 26).* Class and Nation in Colonial Korea

Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), Vol. 1, xix–67. Carter Eckert, “Total War, Industrialization, and Social Change in Late Colonial Korea,” in Peter Duus, Ramon H. Myers, and Mark R. Peattie, eds., The Japanese Wartime Empire, 1931–1945 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 3–39. Carter Eckert, “Class Over Nation: Naisen Ittai and the Korean Bourgeoisie,” in idem, Offspring of Empire (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1991), 224–252. Andre Schmid, “Narrating the Ethnic Nation,” in idem, Korea Between Empires 1895– 1919 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 171–198. 4

Gi-Wook Shin & Do-Hyun Han, “Colonial Corporatism: The Rural Revitalization Campaign, 1932–1940,” in Gi-Wook Shin and Michael Robinson, eds., Colonial Modernity in Korea (Cambridge: the Harvard University Asia Center, 1999), 70– 96. Dong-No Kim, “National Identity and Class Interest in the Peasant Movements of the Colonial Period,” Unpublished Paper, 1–35.

* The response paper to A State of Mind is due at the beginning of class.

Week 3 (Feb 2). Exile Movements and Ideological Divides

# Syngman Rhee, The Spirit of Independence: A Primer of Korean Modernization and Reform. Translated by Han-Kyo Kim (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press; [Seoul:] Institute for Modern Korean Studies, 2001), 85–94, 108–138, & 146– 151. Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 197-213. Michael Robinson, “Ideological Schism in the Korean Nationalist Movement,” Journal of Korean Studies 4 (1982–83), 241–268. Robert Scalapino and Chung Sik Lee, Communism in Korea (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 3–136. Chung Sik Lee, The Politics of Korean Nationalism (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1963), 101–155. Hyôn Ok Park, “The Specter of the Social: Socialist Internationalism, the Minsaengdan, and North Korea,” Two Dreams in One Bed (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), 198–230. Dae Sook Suh, Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 1–57.

The Outbreak of the Korean War and the International Involvements

Week 4 (Feb 9).* The American Occupation of South Korea

Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 68–262. John Lewis Gaddis, “Cold War Empires: Asia,” in idem, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 54–84. John Lewis Gaddis, “Korea in American Politics, Strategy, and Diplomacy, 1945–50,” in Yōnosuke Nagai and Akira Iriye, eds., The Origins of the Cold War in Asia (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1977), 277–298. Akira Iriye, “Continuities in U.S.–Japanese Relations, 1941–49,” in Nagai and Iriye, eds., The Origins of the Cold War in Asia, 378–407.

* Your research paper prospectus is due at the beginning of class.

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Week 5 (Feb 16).* Soviets and China in the Korea War

Sergei N. Goncharov et al., “The Decision for War in Korea,” in idem, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), 130–167. # Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 1–189. Kathryn Weathersby, “New Russian Documents on the Korean War,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin 6–7 (Winter 1995–96): 30–40. “Bruce Cumings and Kathryn Weathersby: An Exchange on Korean War Origins,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin 6–7: 120–122.

* Feb 16. Presidents’ Day (holiday, no classes).

In the Aftermath of the War and Consolidation of the Division

Week 6 (Feb 23).* North Korea: The North Korean Revolution and Regime Consolidation

Charles Armstrong, The North Korean Revolution 1945–1950, 1–135. Andrei Lankov, From Stalin to Kim Il Sung: The Formation of North Korea, 1945–1960 (London: Hurst & Co., 2002), 1–48. Balázs Szalontai, Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era, selections. Kim Il Sung, “On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work” (1955). Kim Jong Il, “On Some Problems of Education in the Juche Idea,” in idem, On Carrying Forward the Juche Idea (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1987).

* The response paper on the readings for Feb. 16 is due at the beginning of class.

Week 8 (Mar 2).* South Korea: Democratization

Namhee Lee, The Making of Minjung, 23–268 & 294–303.

* The progress report of your research (7–9 pages double spaced) is due at the beginning of class.

Week 9 (Mar 9).* The North Korean Crisis: Famine and the Nuclear Issue

Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, Famine in North Korea. Victor D. Cha, “Korea’s Place in the Axis,” May/June 2002, Foreign Affairs. United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations, # “North Korea: an update in six-party talks and matters related to the resolution of the North Korean 6 nuclear crisis: hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, One Hundred Ninth Congress, first session, June 14, 2005.”