Past Events

Since 1987 BAKS has held an annual series of Conferences and Workshops at locations around the country. Papers have been presented on a wide range of subjects, including archaeology, art, economics, literature, politics, and society. Some have been published in the BAKS Papers series.

Together with the sister organisations BACS (Chinese) and BAJS (Japanese), BAKS has taken part in four joint conferences: the theme of the 1994 Joint East Asian Studies Conference in Leeds was ‘East Asian Nationalism’ (BAKS Papers 6), and that of the 1997 Conference in Durham ‘Looking forward, looking back’ (East Asia in the post-colonial era). The Third Joint Conference, held in Edinburgh in April 2001, examined ‘Globalisation and Devolution’, and the fourth (Leeds, 2004) celebrated ‘Dynamic East Asia, Past and Present’.

Workshops with a practical or ‘hands-on’ emphasis have been held on Korean material culture, shamanism, and the Korean holdings in the British Library and British Museum.

The 1998 BAKS CONFERENCE was held in the University of Oxford. The keynote speaker was Professor Suh Dae-suk (University of Hawaii), who gave a provocative speech on the implications for the East Asian region of the leadership changes in both North and South Korea. It may be read in BAKS Papers vol. 7.

The 1999 BAKS CONFERENCE was held in London, at the Brunei Centre (SOAS), the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the British Library, on 12-13 November 1999. The FCO hosted a seminar on North Korea, and the theme in the BL on 13 November was the contemporary arts in Korea.

2000 BAKS CONFERENCE
Religion and Politics in Contemporary Korea

2001 JOINT EAST ASIAN STUDIES CONFERENCE
Globalisation and Devolution

2001 IMJIN WAERAN CONFERENCE

2001 STUDY DAY
North Korea

2002 STUDY DAY
Korea in the New Millennium, Culture and Society

2004 JOINT EAST ASIAN STUDIES CONFERENCE
Dynamic East Asia, Past & Present

2004 STUDY DAY
Korean in the New Millennium, Science and Technology

2005 WORKSHOP
Informal Diplomacy and the Korean Peninsula

2006 CONFERENCE
Generations in Korea—Past, Present, and Future

2007 WORKSHOP
Modern Encounters-Mutual Perceptions of Choson Korea and the West as Reflected in Literature of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

2008 CONFERENCE
The Koreas at 60 — Looking Forward / Looking Back

2009 CONFERENCE
East Asia after 1949

2009 JOINT EAST ASIAN STUDIES CONFERENCE
The British Association for Korean Studies and its fraternal associations for Chinese (BACS) and Japanese Studies (BAJS) hosted a joint conference from 8 to 11 September, 2009 at Halifax Hall at The University of Sheffield. The JEASC event is triennial and the next conference will be held in 2012.

2010 WORKSHOP
Reflections on War and Peace: Sixty Years after the Korean War, a symposium

2011 SYMPOSIUM
Recalling Korea Past: An oral history of the 1950s to the 1980s

2016 JOINT EAST ASIAN STUDIES CONFERENCE

2017 ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
North Korea and North-East Asian security: Reconciling conflicting national interests

2018 WORKSHOP
The Agency of Korean Women