Victoria Ten, ‘Technologies of Self in Contemporary Korea: The Notion of Suryŏn (修練) in GiCheon (氣天),’ Papers of the British Association for Korean Studies, Vol. 16 (2015): 76-96. GiCheon (氣天) is one of many contemporary South Korean mind-body disciplines focused on physical and moral self-cultivation. Utilizing a series of interviews with the adherents of this movement, this paper examines their individual experience… Read more →
Robert Winstanley-Chesters, North Korean Pomiculture 1958–1967: Pragmatism and Revolution
Robert Winstanley-Chesters, ‘North Korean Pomiculture 1958–1967: Pragmatism and Revolution,’ Papers of the British Association for Korean Studies, Vol. 16 (2015): 117–128. Full text available here: Winstanley-Chesters, BAKS Papers 16 Abstract: Building on the author’s past analysis of North Korea’s history of developmental approach and environmental engagement, this paper encounters the field of pomiculture (or orchard development and apple farming) in the light of another… Read more →
Benjamin Young, The Struggle for Legitimacy: North Korea’s Relations with Africa, 1965–1992
Benjamin Young, ‘The Struggle for Legitimacy: North Korea’s Relations with Africa, 1965–1992,’ Papers of the British Association for Korean Studies, Vol. 16 (2015): 97-116. Abstract: From the mid-1960s to the late 1980s, Seoul and Pyongyang sought to gain international recognition as the sole government on the Korean peninsula. Africa, the site of many newly independent nations during the Cold War, became the primary… Read more →
Niu Song, Islam and South Korea’s Middle East Diplomacy
Niu Song, ‘Islam and South Korea’s Middle East Diplomacy,’ Papers of the British Association for Korean Studies, Vol. 16 (2015): 60-75. Abstract: Islam was reintroduced into South Korea during the Korean War due to the participation of the Turkish army. In its more than 50 years’ development process, the achievements of Korean Islam include the establishment of legal Islamic organizations, the construction… Read more →
Shinyoung Kwon, Promoting Mass Movements: A New Perspective on Japanese Wartime Imperialism in Korea
Shinyoung Kwon, ‘Promoting Mass Movements: A New Perspective on Japanese Wartime Imperialism in Korea,’ Papers of the British Association for Korean Studies, Vol. 16 (2015): 1–22. Full text available here: Kwon, BAKS Papers 16. Abstract: This article aims to explore the Japanese colonial government’s efforts to promote mass movements in Korea throughout the 1930s. It focuses on two Governor-Generals and the directors… Read more →
Jong Chol An, Who Are the First Koreans? The First Nationality Law (1948) and Its Limits
Jong Chol An, ‘Who Are the First Koreans? The First Nationality Law (1948) and Its Limits,’ Papers of the British Association for Korean Studies, Vol. 16 (2015): 24-44. Abstract: This article deals with the First Korean Nationality Act which was spurred by the US Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) and enacted by the first Korean Congress. Although there seemed to be a… Read more →
Book Review: Brokers Of Empire: Japanese Settler Colonialism In Korea, 1876–1945 by Jun Uchida
Jun Uchida, Brokers of Empire: Japanese Settler Colonialism In Korea, 1876–1945. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011. 500 pp. ISBN: 978-0674492028. £22.95. Book review by Steven Denney, PhD Candidate at University of Toronto. Jun Uchida’s Brokers of Empire opens the discourse on a long forgotten or purposefully ignored group of individuals: Japanese colonial settlers. Uchida’s focus on Japanese colonial settlers shines light on a world… Read more →
Book Review: The Korean War: An International History by Wada Haruki
Wada Haruki. The Korean War: An International History. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2013. 410 pp. ISBN: 978-1442223295. £26.95. Reviewed by Steven Denney, PhD. candidate at University of Toronto. There is much to be said about the potential an interdisciplinary approach holds for helping Koreanists go beyond the “origins” debate: a debate on the origins of the Korean War—a question of… Read more →
Book Review: Marching Through Suffering: Loss And Survival In North Korea by Sandra Fahy
Sandra Fahy, Marching Through Suffering: Loss And Survival In North Korea. New York: Columbia University Press (2015). 240pps. ISBN: 978-0231171342. £27.50. Reviewed by Darcie Draudt, research associate for Korea Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (U.S.). Of late, there has been an upsurge in popular monographs that detail North Korean defector narratives. The proliferation of these accounts, biographical and… Read more →
Funding opportunity: SOAS-HEFCE Fellowships for two-year area studies MA
The following funding opportunity will be of interest to students wishing to pursue the new MA *Subject* and Intensive Korean degree at SOAS. More information on that degree here: http://www.soas.ac.uk/japankorea/programmes/ma-and-intensive-language-korean/ SOAS HEFCE Scholarships for 2-Year MA Programmes in Language-based Area Studies We are delighted to announce that SOAS has a scholarship fund of £250,000 to award in 2015-16 for students in Language-based… Read more →