A preliminary listing of seminars at SOAS this term. As more are announced this post will be updated. An up-to-date list can always be found on the SOAS Centre of Korean Studies web page.
17/3/17Korean Language Education in Japan: From the Underground Heritage Language to the Mainstream “Hobby Language”
Dr Robert J. Fouser (Independent Scholar)
| 19/1/17 | Media and Creative Industries in Korea, UK and France: Transnational Approaches. |
| 27/1/17 | The First Hot War of the Cold War Brigadier (Retd) Brian Parritt CBE |
| 3/2/17 | Homelands of the Imaginary David Chung (University of Michigan) |
| 10/2/17 | The Situation on the Korean Peninsula and Challenges for ROK Diplomacy HE Mr Hwang Joonkook (Ambassador of the Republic of Korea) |
| 3/3/17 | Measuring Frames: Discursive Institutionalism in Polarized Poltics Dr Oul Han (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) |
| 10/3/17 | P’ansori, Korean Storysinging, Text and Performance Prof. Chan E. Park (Ohio State University) |
More detailed information on the talks is below.
Media and Creative Industries in Korea, UK and France: Transnational Approaches
19 January 2017, 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Room 102 21-22 Russell Square
Abstract
This workshop explores the questions concerning the recent transformation of media and creative industries, focusing on the challenges deriving from the fourth industrial revolution. A wide range of cutting-edge technologies such as ubiquitous and mobile supercomputing, the internet of things, AI, and neuro-technological brain enhancement, to name only a few, fuses physical, digital and biological spheres and requires new transnational and transdisciplinary approaches. In this workshop, scholars from Korea, France and the UK debate theoretical relevance and pragmatic implications of the fourth industrial revolution for the studies of media, art and culture.
Participants
- Prof Pascal Lardellier (Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, France), What Social Sciences have to say about Rituals. Theoretical Musings about Rituals as a “Total Scientific Object”
- Prof Dong Yun Kim (Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea), The 4th Industrial Revolution and Humanistic Horizons.
- Dr Caspar Melville (SOAS, London, UK), Creative industries in the UK: 20 years on.
- Prof Sung Do Kim (Korea University), Some Reflections on the Augmented City.
- Ms Hyunju Kim (Korea University, Seoul, Korea), The condition of Young Artists Generation in Korea.
- Dr Graeme Gilloch (Lancaster University, UK) and Dr Jaeho Kang (SOAS, UK), Discussants
The First Hot War of the Cold War
Brigadier (Retd) Brian Parritt CBE
27 January 2017, 5:15 PM – 7:00 PM
Brunei Gallery Room B102
Abstract
Sixty-four years ago in 1953 a Cease Fire was agreed which halted the fighting in Korea and left a divided country. It was an internecine war but involved over twenty-five different countries and is characterised as the “First Hot War of the Cold War”. Both sides made grotesque intelligence mistakes and disastrous strategic mistakes. This talk is the personal view of the war by a participant in the war.
Speaker Biography
Brian Parritt served thirty-six years in the British Army, culminating in five years as Director of the Intelligence Corps. Throughout his service he held a variety of senior Intelligence and Security appointments all over the world, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Malta, Libya and Cyprus. He is a parachutist and was wounded and commended for bravery as a Gunner Officer during the Korean War. He was awarded the MBE during the ENOSIS Campaign in Cyprus and the CBE in Northern Ireland. In 1956 he studied Chinese (Mandarin) for a year at SOAS followed by two years in Hong Kong University. In 2010 he published a book in four volumes entitled A Dangerous Game which detailed the 23 campaigns which qualified for a clasp on the India General Service Medal 1854-95. He has also published The Intelligencers the story of Military Intelligence from the Middle Ages to 1929 and in 2011 Chinese Hordes and Human Waves – A Personal Perspective of the Korean War 1950-1953. In 2014 he won a prize of 2 million Won given by the Korean Government for an essay of 50,000 words to be entitled Living through the War.
Homelands of the Imaginary
David Chung (University of Michigan)
3 February 2017, 5:15 – 7:00 PM
Brunei Gallery Room B102
Abstract
David Chung will present an illustrated lecture that traces his career as a visual artist and filmmaker. He will discuss projects about Korean diasporic populations in the United States and the former Soviet Union as well as a recent project about North Korean refugees living in Seoul.
Speaker Biography
David Chung is an acclaimed visual artist and filmmaker known for his films, multi -media installations, drawings, prints, and public artworks. David Chung has exhibited widely throughout the world including the Tretyakov Museum in Moscow, the Gwangju Biennale, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Chung’s recent film, Koryo Saram, received the Best Documentary Film Award from the National Film Board of Canada. He is a professor at the Penny Stamps School of Art and Design and Core Faculty with the Nam Center for Korean Studies at the University of Michigan. In 2013, David Chung was the Kim Koo Visiting Professor with the Korea Institute at Harvard University.
The Situation on the Korean Peninsula and Challenges for ROK Diplomacy
HE Mr Hwang Joonkook (Ambassador of the Republic of Korea)
10 February 2017, 5:15 PM – 8:00 PM
Brunei Gallery Room B102
Abstract
In his lecture, Ambassador Hwang will focus on the current situation on the Korean Peninsula including analysis of North Korea’s WMD capabilities and human rights abuses carried out by the regime. He will also talk about what challenges we are facing in the process and what the Korean Government and the international community are doing to resolve these problems. Furthermore, he will reflect on the geopolitical dynamics among its neighbours as well as how major powers in East Asia can work together to address the North Korean problem.
Speaker Biography
Ambassador Joonkook Hwang was born in Seoul in December 1960 and educated at Seoul National University where he majored in Economics. He subsequently went on to study at Princeton University graduating with a Master’s Degree in Public Affairs.
He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea in 1982. For the majority of his diplomatic career, he has been focusing on a wide range of political and security issues both at the bilateral and multilateral level including the North Korean Nuclear issue.
He has served in the US three times, twice at the ROK Mission to the United Nations in New York mainly dealing with Security Council affairs and once as a DCM in charge of political and security affairs in Washington DC in 2010-2013. He was also the lead negotiator for the ROK-US Defense Burden-sharing arrangement in 2013.
His latest posting in Seoul was as the Vice Minister for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs (Head of Delegation to the Six-Party Talks) from 2014-2016. He has also served at the ROK Embassy in Saudi Arabia and in the United Kingdom on two occasions, having first served in the late 1980s before returning as Ambassador to the Court of St. James in March 2016.
He enjoys walking both in country fields and city streets. He is married to Shil Rhee with two daughters, aged 30 and 26, and one grandson.
Measuring Frames: Discursive Institutionalism in Polarized Poltics
Dr Oul Han (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales)
3 March 2017, 5:15 – 7:00 PM
Brunei Gallery Room B102
Abstract
Polarization in politics can indicate social and historical conflicts that remain in a young democracy, which define politics in the discursive level rather than on the policy level. Discourse is however a slippery concept to operationalize, despite its methodological utility for understanding locked-in polarization that we find in South Korea as an apparent success case of democratization. Facing this methodological problem is highly beneficial for demonstrating the development of countries after democratization, and as a possible solution, I present an approach for leveraging masses of politically meaningful text for measuring institutionalized frames over time and across polarized camps.
Previous scholars pointed out that polarization is high whereas political differentiation is low, which is owed to the low institutionalization of political parties in South Korea. As result, extreme political competition shapes cross-camp convergences and divergences regarding national agendas. I propose the concept of discursive polarization, which is sustained by political framing in the communicative sphere. Over long time, such frames are discursive institutions that reproduce existing political frames but can adapt to political situations, such as growing income inequality or North Korean provocations.The institutional quality of these frames makes them measurable in quality and quantity.
For analysis, I apply quantitative text analysis that shows statistical word relationships in large corpora. I examine the discourses about welfare and unification, issues that vary by decreasing versus increasing frequency, and by policy polarization versus convergence. By analyzing over 100.000 articles from 24 years (1990-2014) in two partisan newspapers via mixed methods, I am able to make sense of framing patterns, political strategies, and incentives for polarizing within the political contexts of that time.
Findings suggest that polarizing frames outweigh idea-conveying frames due to their political utility for seizing power. Further, the behavior of strategic framing is likely to diminish political ideas and policy deliberation. Methodological and empirical insights of South Korean polarization contribute to debates of polarization studies, democratization studies, and comparative studies of ideological scaling.
Speaker Biography
Oul Han is a Korea Foundation postdoctoral research fellow at the (CRC) Centre de Recherches sur la Corée of EHESS (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales). Under the primary supervision of Prof. Eun-Jeung Lee, she received her PhD in Political Science from the Graduate School of East Asian Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin for her dissertation on the measurability of polarized discourses in South Korea. As a German Korean, she is interested in questions of cross-cultural validity for political science, for which she currently leverages mixed methods such as text-as- data.
After originally graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art at St. Martins School of Art, she then studied for a Master’s degree in European Area Studies at the Graduate School of International Studies of Seoul National University. Before academia, she worked in various cross-cultural mediating roles as freelance translator, at Fraunhofer Representative Office Korea, and as external affairs officer at Korea Institute of Public Finance and Taxation.
P’ansori, Korean Storysinging, Text and Performance
Prof. Chan E. Park (Ohio State University)
10 March 2017, 5:15 PM – 7:00 PM
Brunei Gallery Room B102
Abstract
P’ansori is a solo-singer storytelling designated as Korea’s intangible treasure and world oral heritage. Its narrative structure alternates between spoken passages that move the plot and sung passages that further define the musical poetics. Five classical narratives remain with their vocal stylistics vividly revealing the ancient Korean cultures, beliefs, and expressions. In the past, p’ansori had developed as a popular musical theater, and Koreans in the K-pop eras have very different notions of what constitutes popular music and theater. Chan Park’s work builds on her fascination with the distinctly “Korean” voice captured in this phonic time machine. She will share her understanding of p’ansori with a short adaptation from Sugungga, Song of the Water Palace, titled, “Turtle Travels to the Land in Search of Hare,” with English subtitles for the songs.
Speaker Biography
Chan E. Park is Professor of Korean Language, Literature, and Performance and Director of the Korean Performance Research Program at The Ohio State University. Her specialtiesinclude research and performance of Korean musical and narrative tradition. Park has published extensively on the Korean performativity and its interdisciplinary implications, including her monograph, Voices from the Straw Mat: Toward an Ethnography of Korean Story Singing (University of Hawai’i Press 2003), and 5-volume Songs of Thorns and Flowers: Bilingual Performance and Discourse on Modern Korean Poetry Series (Foreign Language Publications 2010-2015). She has singly or collaboratively produced theatrical premieres including: Centennial P’ansori: In 1903, Pak Hungbo Went to Hawai’i (2003); When Tiger Smoked His Pipe (2003); Shim Ch’ong: A Korean Folktale (2003); Alaskan P’ansori: Klanott and the Land Otter People (2005); Pak Hûngbo Went to Almaty (2007); Song of Everyday Ch’unhyang (2008); Fox Hunts and Freedom Fighters Korean and Western Women in Seoul 1894-1920 (2009); Fox Hunt and the Death of a Queen (2012); Hare Returns from the Underwater Palace (2013).
Korean Language Education in Japan: From the Underground Heritage Language to the Mainstream “Hobby Language”
Dr Robert J. Fouser (Independent Scholar)
17 March 2017, 5:15 – 7:00 pm
Brunei Gallery Room: B102
Abstract
This talk examines the evolution of Korean as a heritage language and as a foreign language in Japan from the late 19th Century to the present. The origins of the resident Korean, or zainichi, community in Japan can be traced back to the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945) and during postwar political and social upheavals. The development of postwar ethnic Korean institutions that provided heritage language instruction to Korean communities in Japan, the pro-North Korean Chongryun and the pro-South Korean Mindan, developed an extensive system of schools from kindergarten to university that provide instruction in Korean only. Drawing on the history of Korean as a foreign language education in Japan in high schools, universitites, and, from the 1990s, as a “hobby language”, Fouser concludes that the gradual assimilation of resident Koreans into Japanese society and the rise of the Korean wave, or Hallyu, as a mainstream cultural product has caused heritage language education to be subsumed into the newly popularized field of Korean as a foreign language.
Biography
Robert J. Fouser holds a B.A. in Japanese language and literature, and M.A. in applied linguistics, both from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in applied linguistics from Trinity College Dublin. He studied Korean language intensively at Seoul National University in the 1980s. During his time in Japan, he taught foreign language education at Kyoto University and developed the Korean language program in Kagoshima University. From 2008 to 2014, he taught Korean as a second/foreign language education at Seoul National University. He also is the translator of Understanding Korean Literature (1997), co-author of Hanok: The Korean House (2015), and the author of two books in Korean Mirae Simin eui jogeon[Conditions for Citizenship in the Future: A Manual of Democracy for Koreans] (2016) and Seochon Hollik [Seochon-holic] (2016). He is currently writing a book on the history of foreign language learning and teaching. He also writes regular columns for media outlets in Korea.