London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

SOAS seminar: Unequal treaties

A quick notice of a seminar upcoming this week: Centre of Korean Studies Seminar 18th of September 2007. Venue: SOAS Room B111 Time: 5pm – 7pm Han Seunghoon (Korea University) The Beginning of the Unequal Treaty System in Late-Nineteenth century Choson As usual, the event is free and no pre-booking is required [Read More]

Spotlight on Slavery: North Korea – Behind the Headlines

As often happens with events related to Korea, one has to make choices. On 20 September one has to choose between the Anglo-Korean Society Chuseok dinner and something more sombre. Earlier this year two reports were published on North Korean human rights by Anti-Slavery International and Christian Solidarity Worldwide. Meanwhile the BBC have been working … [Read More]

The North viewed from the North

Korea Discussion Group “The North viewed from the North: A Swedish diplomat’s take on North Korea since 2001” Ambassador Paul Beijer Wednesday 5th September 2007 Meeting: 1.15-2.15pm Lunch: 12.45-1.15 (£10.00 charge) Chair: Jim Hoare The talk will be on the topic of The North viewed from the North: A Swedish diplomat’s take on North Korea … [Read More]

The Grand Culture Project

At the SOAS / AKS conference on 26 June, the talk by Kim Hyeon, Associate Professor of Cultural Informatics at the Academy of Korean Studies, had the title “the Korean Wave, Cultural Content and Cultural Informatics”. “What on earth is Cultural Informatics?” I hear you ask. You would not be alone. But read on. The … [Read More]

ISKS conference agenda announced

Here’s the provisional agenda. Apologies if I’ve misinterpreted a somewhat confusing Word document. Many parallel streams, I think. Thursday 16 August 8월 16일 (목) 09:00-09:30 개 회 식 10:00-12:00 분과회A 언어1 국어 불규칙동사의 기저형 재고 (김진우 – Univ.of Illinois) 최근 조선언어학계가 관심하고있는 연구방향과 성과 (문영호 – 사회과학원) 고구려어 연구 시론 -고구려어 문법 형태의 재구를 시도하며 … [Read More]

Fakes and curruption in art and academia

There has been a number of stories of fakes recently. Here’s a brief round-up of links 1 Shin Jeong-ah. Dongguk University Fires Bogus Professor, Korea Times, 20 July Stroke of luck, raw talent fueled Shin’s ascent, JoongAng Daily, 14 July. Some selected extracts: Shin Jeong-ah was 23 when the 1995 collapse of the Sampoong Department … [Read More]

A hallyu tourism research project in Leeds

A reader at ukfan’s DJG Comic Relief forum is doing a research project on Dae Jang Geum. He’s a PhD researcher at Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change at Leeds Metropolitan University. As part of this he needs your help to perfect a cultural survey. The survey can be found here. Please email it to … [Read More]

SOAS workshop: Culture and Society in Modern Korea

SOAS has now announced the programme for its free one-day Korean Studies workshop on 26 June. There are some entertaining speakers. Jim Hoare will be talking about the South’s engagement policy; Keith Howard looks like he’s going to be talking about something way over my head but he usually presents in a user-friendly manner. I’m … [Read More]

British-North Korea Parliamentary Group meeting

The All-party British-North Korea Parliamentary Group is holding an evidence session at 11:00am on Tuesday 19 June in the Moses Room in the Houses of Parliament. The purpose of group, chaired by Lord Alton, is to engage in dialogue with the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea; to develop links between parliamentarians in … [Read More]

Oxford lecture on Koguryo and Balhae

With apologies for the late notice, I’ve just heard about a lecture on Koguryo and Balhae / Parhae / Bohai at Oxford tomorrow. Details as follows: Institute for Chinese Studies University of Oxford Trinity Term 2007 Seminar Series Koguryo and Bohai in the East Asian world order Tineke D’Haeseleer Institute of Chinese Studies University of … [Read More]

Call for papers – Edinburgh conference 20-22 Sept

Call for Papers: 4th Korean Studies Graduate Students Convention (KSGSC) in Europe Edinburgh, UK: 20-22 September 2007 The School of Social and Political Studies at the University of Edinburgh (UK) is pleased to announce the 4th Korean Studies Graduate Students Convention. The event is hosted by the University of Edinburgh (UK) and will take place … [Read More]

Kim Hunggyu: Understanding Korean Literature

ME Sharpe, 1997 Written in 1986 and expertly translated by Robert Fouser ten years later, this is a highly readable basic introduction to the wide variety of Korean literary forms. The scope of the work includes oral literature, literature written in Korean but using Chinese characters, and, perhaps controversially, literature written in classical Chinese, as … [Read More]

Korean language meet-ups

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed a new type of event at the bottom of my “April Events” post. It’s a Korean language meet-up. It seems there’s a group of like-minded people — some native Korean speakers and some learners — who meet up once a month in the West End somewhere, and, (I’m … [Read More]