NEWS,
SPRING 2007
Welcome to the Spring 2007 edition of the BAKS
Newsletter! If 2006 had ended
disspiritingly, with the nuclear stand-off in everybody? mind and the
Six-Power talks stalled, the new year has already brought greater optimism. Not
that the public will necessarily realise it, because the media, preoccupied
with better-selling bad news from Iraq and Iran, seems largely to have
overlooked the shift in Pyongyang? policy of confrontation, and the easing of
nuclear tension. Let? hope it isn? just another example of the regime?
brinkmanship, and that this time there is real hope for the sort of economic
progress that the people of the North so badly need, and for the kind of
diplomatic dˇtente that would really benefit the rest of the world.
Council matters
Changes to the BAKS Council have been entered on the Council
page of the BAKS website. John Swenson-Wright has taken over as Treasurer from
Susan Pares. She will be a hard act to follow, and we are very grateful to her
for all she has done for several years in the dual role of Treasurer and
Membership Secretary. She has also surrendered the task of editing the BAKS
Papers series (about which more elsewhere).
Jay Lewis has generously agreed to take over from Keith
Pratt as website manager in the course of the summer.
Dr Kirsteen Kim has joined the Council. She it was who
helped to organise the Conference in York last summer on Theology and Korean
Reconciliation (see the Autumn 2006 Newsletter).
In the course of the last few months the Council has been
concerned with two important pieces of business. The first has been to set up,
in association with the British Chamber of Commerce in Korea, a scheme to
enable students of Korean at UK universities to be attached for a period of
time to companies in Korea in order to gain experience of working conditions
there. It is anticipated that one company will host one student, after the
conclusion of the latter? full-time coursework during his/her year abroad in
the ROK. The proposed scheme has been met with enthusiasm at the Korean end,
and will come into effect in summer 2008. It will be separate from the KVA
Bursary scheme, which we are glad to say has again been renewed for the coming
year. Sub-committees of the Council will help to administer both schemes.
In conjunction with the UK-Korea Forum for the Future, the
Council has also endeavoured to draw to the attention of government the
importance of promoting Korea and Korean language training at the higher
education level in the UK. Both the Forum and BAKS had noted with concern that
while the government seemed, via HEFCE, to be slowly acknowledging the
importance of Chinese and Japanese studies, Korea was evidently being
neglected. We do not expect any dramatic conversion in official thinking, but
think it is important to keep up the pressure on successive Secretaries of
State and their Ministers (not to mention Prime Ministers).
Cultural matters
2006 was designated ?hink Korea?year, and from the remoteness of the north-east corner of England I am bound to say that I noticed quite an increase in the number of events announced as taking place in London and the south-east in the course of the year. (All we need to do now is to persuade the organisers to bring more of them north as well? They have included concerts, plays, films, exhibitions, and discussions. One or two even attracted reviews in the national press, which is quite something ? in my experience, professional reviewers are wary about showing their ignorance when it comes to East Asian culture. Asia House, which has now become fully functioning, also weighed in, and its recent programme included a series on contemporary Korean art. In other words, although the new Korean Cultural Centre has yet to move into its central London premises and receive an official opening, it seems to be making its presence felt. We can be grateful that we are getting forewarning of these things from Philip Gowman via Electronic BAKS. (The latter has just celebrated its 3rd ?irthday? and we thanked David Prendergast for setting it up in the first place and continuing to keep a fatherly eye on it.)
Last November several members of BAKS were among previous recipients of Korea Foundation grants who were invited to the Embassy to give their views on ?ynamic Korea? One of the suggestions that was put forward was that the Embassy might consider producing its own website. This, apparently, was already in preparation, and it has now appeared (http://www.koreanembassy.org.uk/maineng.php). In addition, the embassies of both the ROK and DPRK now regularly send out e-mail releases affirming their own views of the world and their doings in it. They make an interesting comparison and contrast.
Please
note:
that the Council has begun planning work on
the 2008 Conference, to be held in Cambridge on the theme ?he Koreas at Sixty:
Looking Back, Looking Forward? Please keep an eye on the Conferences page of
this website to be sure not to miss details as they are announced;
that some new reviews have been uploaded onto
the Book Review 2 section of this Newsletter;
that BAKS 11 has been published. Full details
are on the BAKS Papers page;
that the International Society for Korean
Studies is arranging a conference in London (at SOAS) on 16-17 August 2007. For
further information, please contact:
Organising
Committee (Japan), 5th Floor OIC Centre, 2-2, Funahashi-cho, Tennouji-ku,
Osaka, Japan; info@isks.org
Tel :
+81-6-768-8425 / Fax : +81-6-763-5080
(UK) Centre of Korean Studies, School of
Oriental & African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H
0XG, jy1@soas.ac.uk,yeonjaehoon@yahoo.co.kr;
that the answers to the identification and
location puzzles in the last Newsletter were, (i) tiles from a wall decoration
along part of Chonggyechon running through central Seoul, showing King Ch™ngjo?
procession (banchado), (ii) a
19th-century letter rack, from the National Museum of Korea. There were no
winners!!
New Publications by BAKS members have included:
Keith Howard, Preserving Korean Music: Intangible Cultural
Properties as Icons of Identity, Ashgate, 228 pp., 2006, ISBN 0 7546
3892 8
Keith Howard, Creating Korean Music: Tradition, Innovation, and
the Discourse of Identity, Ashgate, 242 pp., 2006, ISBN 0 7546 5729 9
Ed. Keith Howard, Riding the Wave: Korean Pop Music, Global
Oriental, 250 pp., 2006, ISBN 1 905246 22 6
Ed. Jaehoon Yeon, Studies
in Korean Morpho-Syntax: A Functional-Typological Perspective, University
of London, 212pp. ISBN 1872843387 (Hard cover) 1872843395 (Soft cover)
Jaehoon Yeon, Korean Grammatical Constructions: Their Form and
Meaning, University of London, 232pp, ISBN 1872843360 (Hard cover) ISBN
1872843263 (soft cover)
* * * * *
In autumn 2007, the first edition of a proposed new yearbook
'Korea: Politics, Economy, Society' will be published. The new
yearbook will be edited by Ruediger Frank (Vienna), James Hoare (London),
Patrick Koellner (Hamburg), and Susan Pares (London). Park Sunghoon (Seoul) and
Charles Armstrong (New York) have
agreed to serve as associate overseas editors. It will be the English-language
successor to 'Korea: Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft', a German-language
yearbook on Korean affairs which has
been published by the Institute of Asian Affairs in Hamburg since 1996.
The new yearbook, to be published by a major international publishing company,
will continue the format of its predecessor, i.e. it will include regular
overview sections (domestic developments in both North and South Korea, foreign
relations of the Koreas, and inter-Korean relations in the year preceding
publication) plus, on average, eight articles on political, economic, and
social affairs in the two Koreas.
For the latter (refereed) section of the yearbook the editors are
now calling for papers. We are happy to consider proposals for papers on all
aspects of Korean politics (incl. foreign and security policy), economy, and
society. We are particularly interested in papers dealing with current affairs
and developments. Potential contributors should submit an abstract of
about 200 words by email
attachment to Patrick Koellner (koellner@giga-hamburg.de).
We are looking forward to hearing from you!
* * * * *
The Royal Asiatic Society has announced two new awards. The
?rofessor Mary Boyce Prize?for a an article relating to the study of religion
in Asia, and the ?ir George Staunton Prize?for an essay by a young scholar
? young scholar is defined as someone either in the process of finishing
a PhD or as someone who has finished a doctorate in the last five years. The
essay must relate to Asia but beyond that, there are no restrictions on
coverage. Submissions can be hard copy (A4 with double spacing) accompanied by
an electronic version, or by e-mail providing a postal address is given. Hard
copy to The Journal, RAS, 14 Stephenson Way, London NW1 2HD , or email to cdb@royalasiaticsociety.org
Closing date 31 May 2007.
