ASIAN 2218: Introduction to Korea

Instructor: Ellie Choi

Class time: M, W 1:25 - 2:15
Required Discussion Sections: 12:20 -1:10 or 1:25 2:15
Class location: URH 202
Office hours: To be announced in class.
Email: yc869@cornell.edu
Phone: 617)818-2475
This is an inter-disciplinary course in which we will explore the
culture and history of the Korean peninsula, both South and North, from its
foundation myths to contemporary life. While dealing with the broad scope
of Korea in the historical context, building on the key aspects of pre-modern
and modern Korean culture (debates and controversies in the present), we
will move chronologically through major historical, political, economic and
social moments that inform contemporary Korean identity, and arrive at the
particulars of contemporary North and South Korea today, from daily life,
gender, civil society to KPop. Through the wealth of film on reserve at the
library, and other sources such as literature, music, and photographs,
emphasis will be placed on envisioning and understanding Korea in a broad,
multi-disciplinary way, in hopes of appreciating how the peninsula after a
tumultuous and often painful history has arrived at its moment of Korea
Sparkling.
No prior knowledge of Korea or the Korean language is expected.
Class Format and Requirements
Attendance, participation, response papers, and short assignments (30%)
In-class midterm (30%)
In-class final exam (40%)
Textbook:
Michael E. Robinson, Koreas Twentieth-Century Odyssey (2007)
Texts: Uploaded on Blackboard
Films as Resources:
Annyoung, Sayonara
Ch'unhyang
Crossing the Line
Dear Pyongyang
Insadong Scandal
Joint Security Area
Kim Jongilia
The King and the Clown
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Kory Saram
Madame Freedom
Musa
Namnam pungnyo (Southern Man, Northern Woman, or Love Impossible)
P'iagol
T'aegkki
Tokyo-Peking: Through Tyosen and Manchoukuo, 1931
Welcome to Dongmakgol
Week 1 (8/22/2012): Introduction
Week 2 (8/27, 29): Foundation Myths and National Identity
M
"Origins of Korean Culture," in Sources of Korean Tradition, vol. 1,
eds. Peter H. Lee and Wm.
Theodore de Bary (NY: Columbia University Press, 1997), 1-6.
"Foundation Myths," in Peter H. Lee, Anthology of Korean Literature
from Early Times to the
Nineteenth Century (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
1990), 3-16.
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the
Origins and Spread of Nationalism
(London: Verso, 1983), 5-7, 9-12.
W

National identity
Michael J. Seth, A Concise History of Korea (Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefleld, 2006), 7-26.
Jane Portal, "Archaeology and the Reshaping of History," in Art Under
Control in North Korea
(London: Reaktion Books, 2005), 105-115.
"King Kwanggaet'o Stele," Sources of Korean Tradition 1, 23-26.
James Palais, A Search for Korean Uniqueness, Harvard Journal of
Asiatic Studies vol.55, no.2
(December 1995), pp. 409-25.
"Korea in the Chinese Dynastic Histories" in Peter H. Lee and Wm.
Theodore de Bary, eds
Sources of Korean Tradition I (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1997), 6-13.
Week 3 (9/5): Three Kingdoms
W
Michael Seth, A Concise History of Korea, "The Fourth Century and
the Emergence of the
Three Kingdoms," 27-47.
Ebrey, Patricia, Anne Walthall, and James Palais. Early Korea:
Chosn, Three Kingdoms,
Silla, Parhae.Pre-Modern East Asia: To 1800, A Cultural, Social
and Political History.
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Week 4 (9/10, 12): Kory

M
Michael Seth, A Concise History of Korea, Ch. 4 Kory, pp. 75-98.
Optional
Ebrey, Patricia, Anne Walthall, and James Palais. The Kory Dynasty
(889-1259),
Pre-Modern East Asia: To 1800, A Cultural, Social and Political
History, pp. 176-91,
pp. 226-52.
Edward J. Shultz, Generals and Scholars: Medieval Rule in Military
Korea (Honolulu: University of
Hawaii, 2000), pp 110-130
Film: Musa (2001)
W

Poem: The Turkish Bakery, An Anthology of Korean Literature, p. 43

Michael Seth, A Concise History of Korea, "Military Rulers and Mongol
Invaders," pp. 99-119.
Optional:
Ebrey, Patricia, Anne Walthall, and James Palais. Connections: The
Mongols, and
China and Korea under Mongol Rule (1215-1368), Pre-Modern
East Asia: To 1800,
A Cultural, Social and Political History, pp. 176-91, pp. 226-52.
Due: Response paper
Week 5(9/17, 19): The Confucianization of Korea, or the
Koreanization of Confucianism?
M
Foundations of the Choson Dynasty
Michael Seth, A Concise History of Korea, "The Neo-Confucian
Revolution and the Chosn
State," pp. 121-149.
Seth, "Choson Society," A Concise History of Korea, pp. 151-161.
Haboush, JaHyun Kim. "The Confucianization of Korean Society." In
Gilbert Rozman, ed.
The East Asian Region: Confucian Heritage and Its Modem
Adaptation. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1991, 84-110.
JaHyun Kim Haboush, A Heritage of Kings: One Man's Monarchy in
the Confucian World (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 7-28.
W

Gender and Status during the Choson Dynasty

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Michael E. Robinson, Koreas Twentieth-Century Odyssey (2007),

Intro. and Ch. 1, pp. 1-35.
Martina Deuchler, "The Tradition: Women During the Yi Dynasty,"
Sandra Mattielli ed.,
Virtues in Conflict: Tradition and the Korean Woman Today
(Seoul: Samhwa Publishing,
1977), 1-47.
Mark Peterson, "Women without Sons: A Measure of Social Change in
Yi Dynasty Korea,"
in Laurel Kendall and Mark Peterson, eds., Korean Women: View
from the Inner Room
(New Haven, CT: East Rock Press, 1983), 33-44.
Optional:
"Founding the Choson Dynasty," Sources of Korean Tradition I, 271278.
"The Recruitment Examinations," Sources of Korean Tradition I, 300301.
"Neo-Confucianism," Sources of Korean Tradition I, 251-256.
"The Great Learning," in Wm. Theodore de Bary, ed., Sources of
Chinese Tradition I (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1960), 113-117.
Wing-tsit Chan, "Moral and Social Programs: The Great Learning,11 in
Chan, A Source Book in
Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1963), 84-94. [Optional]
Week 6 (9/24, 26): Pre-Modern Society and Culture
M
Robert Buswell, Jr., Buddhism under Confucian Domination: The
Synthetic Vision of
Ssan Hyujng, in Haboush and Deuchler ed., Culture and the
State in Late Choson
Korea, pp. 134-159.
Boudewijn Walraven, Popular Religion in Confucianized Society, in
Culture and the State,
pp. 160-198.
W

Traveling Pre-modern East Asia

Hendrik Hamel, Hamels Journal and a description of the Kingdom of
Korea, 1653-1666
Accounts of the Eastern Barbarian in Peter Lee, ed., Sourcebook of
Korean Civilization, vol. 1,
pp.13-24
Gari Ledyard, Korean Travelers in China over Four Hundred Years,
1488-1887,
Occasional Papers on Korea, no. 2 (March 1974), pp. 1-42
Jung-won Kim. Navigating Inner and Outer Landscapes: Nineteenth
Century
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Travelogue by Kmwn, in Imagining Korea, Imagining the

World, eds., Boudewijn
Walraven and JaHyun Kim Haboush.
Week 7 (10/1, 3): Violations of Convention and Sovereignty
M

The "Opening" of Empire: Fin de siecle Korea

Michael E. Robinson Koreas Twentieth-Century Odyssey, Ch. 2, pp.
36-55.
Koen de Ceuster, K., The World in a Book: Yu Kilchun's 'Soyu
kyonmun.' In: Breuker,
R.E. (Ed.), Korea in the Middle. Korean Studies and Area
Studies (CNWS Publications,
2007), 153. , pp. 67-96. Leiden: CNWS Publications.
W

Film: Hanbando (dir. Kang Usok, 2006) -Film: Tyosen(\93,91)

Todd Henry, Sanitizing Empire: Japanese Articulations of Korean
Otherness and the
Construction of Early Colonial Seoul, 1905-1919," The Journal of
Asian Studies 64,
no. 3 (August 2005): 643-653, 660-668.
William Griffis, Corea: The Hermit Nation (1882/1907), 497-506.
H. N. Allen, Korean Tales (1889), 3-4, 15-22.
H. N. Allen, Things Korean (1908), 131-35.
Isabella Bird Bishop, Korea and Her Neighbors (1898), 23-28, 35-42,
445-449.
Sin, Chaeho, Introduction to A New Discourse on Reading History
in Sourcebook of Korean
Civilization, vol. II, pp. 423-5.
Due: Response paper (compare late 19th-early 20th century impressions of
Korea with contemporary
opinions, at: http://www.koreanbloglist.com/)
Week 8 (10/10): The Colonial Modern
Midterm examination (in-class)**
W
The Colonization of Korea
Film clip: Volunteer (dir. An Sogyong, 1941)
Michael E. Robinson, Koreas Twentieth-Century Odyssey (2007), Ch.
3, pp. 56-75.
"Korea Becomes Cho-sen," New York Times (Aug. 29, 1910)
"Hirohito Finishes Rites of Accession," New York Times (Nov. 26,
1928)
"Japan is Speeding Korean Education," New York Times (Aug. 6,
1939)
Kajiyama Toshiyuki, "The Clan Records," in The Clan Records: Five
Stories of Korea (Honolulu:
University of Hawai'i Press, 1995), 7-46.
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Hildi Kang, A Map Changed My Life, Under the Black Umbrella:

Voices from Colonial Korea,
1910-1945 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 1-5, 24-36.
Optional:
"The Nationalist Movement," Sourcebook of Korean Civilization, vol. 2,
428-436, 444-450.
Gi-Wook Shin and Michael Robinson, eds., Colonial Modernity in Korea
(Cambridge: Harvard
East Asia Center, 1999), 1-18.
Hyung Gu Lynn, "Moving Pictures: Postcards of Colonial Korea," IMS
Newsletter 44
(Summer 2007): 8-9.
Week 9 (10/15, 17): Legacies of the Colonial Period
M
"Comfort Women," Collaboration
Film clips: Annyong, Sayonara (dir. Kim Paeil, 2005)
Robinson, Koreas Twentieth Century Odyssey, Ch. 4, pp. 76-99.
Tessa Morris-Suzuki, "Japan's 'Comfort Women': It's time for the truth
(in the ordinary,
everyday sense of the word," Japan Focus (March 8,2007), 1-11.
Hyun Sook Kim, "History and Memory: the 'Comfort Women'
Controversy," positions: east
asia cultures critique 5.1 (Spring 1997): 73-106.
Chon Kwangyong, "Kapitan Lee," in Flowers of Fire: Twentieth
Century Korean Stories, ed. Peter
H. Lee (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986), 233-254.
Optional:
Won Soon Park, "Japanese Reparations Policies and the 'Comfort
Women' Question,"
positions: east asia cultures critique 5 A (Spring 1997): 107-134.
W

Diaspora Across the 20* Century: Koreans Outside Korea?

Film screening: Koryo saram: The Unreliable People (dir. Y. David
Chung and Matt Dibble, 2006)
German N. Kim, "Koryo Saram, or Koreans of the Former Soviet Union:
In the Past and
Present," Amerasia Journal 29:3 (2003-04), 23-29.
Kachig Tololyan, "The Nation-State and its Others: In Lieu of a
Preface," Diaspora: a
Journal
of Transnational Studies 1
(1): 1-2.
Edward Taehan Chang, "Korean Kaleidoscope: An Overview of Korean
Immigration to the
U.S.," Korean and Korean American Studies Bulletin 11:2
(2000): 1-19.
Sonia Ryang, "Introduction: Resident Koreans in Japan," in Koreans in
Japan: Critical Voices from
the Margin (Oxford: Routledge, 2000): 1-12.

Week 10 (10/22, 24): The Korean War and National Division

M

Remembering the War and National Division

Film (to be viewed prior to class meeting): Welcome to Dongmakgol
(dir. Pak Kwanghyon,
2005)
Michael Robinson, Koreas Twentieth-Century Odyssey (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press,
2007), Ch. 5, pp 101-12
Ehrhart, et.al, Retrieving Bones (Introduction), pp.xiii-xxiii; (Rice),
pp.1-13; (A Long Way from
Home), pp.13-42.
Cho Chongnae. Land of Exile (Yuhyng i ttang, 1981)
W

Two Koreas
Film: Kim Jongilia
Literature: Inside North Korea, Special Feature, Azalea (2008),
comic boosk and O Yngjae. Oh, My Mother Upon hearing after 40 years that my
mothers lives in the
South, Azalea (2008) pp. 73-152.
Michael E. Robinson, Koreas Twentieth-Century Odyssey (2007), Ch.
7, pp. 146-166.
Due: response paper
Week 11 (10/29, 31) Two Koreas
M

Film: Dear Pyongyang

Park Chung Hee, The Country, the Revolution, and I, Introduction, pp.
19-24; Ch. 8, pp. 165-91.
Choe In Su, Kim Jong Il: The Peoples Leader, pp. 59-70.
Byung Chul Koh, North Korean Foreign Policy After Kim Il Sung:
Continuity and
Change in Byung Chul Koh, ed., Korea: Dynamics of Diplomacy
and Unification
(Claremont, CA: The Keck Center for International and Strategic
Studies,
Claremont McKenna College, 2001) pp 9-34.
Lankov, Andrei. Daily Lives, Recreation and Fashion, and Family
Matters, North of the
DMZ: Essays on the Daily Life in North Korea, Pts. 6-8, pp. 96140.
W

Film clips: Obaltan (A Stray Bullet, dir. Yu Hyonmok, 1961)

Poem: Kim Chi Ha, The Story of a Sound, in David R. McCann,
trans., The Middle
7

Hour: Selected Poems of Kim Chi Ha, pp. 33-43.

Week 12 (11/5, 7): Social Change and Globalization (in Art): Post-war
to the Present
M

Film: Madame Freedom (dir. Han Hyongmo, 1956)

Michael E. Robinson Koreas Twentieth-Century Odyssey, Ch. 6, 8,
and Epilogue.
Helen-Louise Hunter, Kim Il-songs North Korea, pp. xiii-xviii; 1-11;
83-113; 129-140.
W

Film: A Single Spark (Armdaun chngnyn Chn Taeil, 1995)

Wells, The Cultural Construction of Korean History," South Korea's
Minjung Movement: The
Culture
and Politics of Dissidence Ed. Kenneth M. Wells
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
1995), pp. 11-29.
Hagen Koo, The State, Minjung, and the Working Class in South
Korea, in Koo, ed. State
and Society in Contemporary Korea, pp. 131-162.
Tim Warnberg, The Kwangju Uprising: An Inside View, Korean
Studies Volume 11 (1987):
33-57.
Week 13 (11/12, 14): Anti-Americanism, Gender Issues
M
Anti-Americanism
Katharine Moon. Resurrecting Prostitutes and Overturning
Treaties: Gender Politics in
the South Korean Anti-American Movement, Journal of Asian
Studies 66:1 (2007)
____________. Challenging U.S. Hegemony: Asian Nationalism and
Anti-Americanism in
East Asia, in The United States and East Asia: Old Issues and
New Thinking (eds. G. John Ikenberry and Chung-in Moon),
Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.
____________. Rethinking Young Anti-Americanism in South Korea
(co-authored with
Youngshik Bong) in The Anti-American Century (eds. Allan
McPherson and Ivan
Krastev), Central European University Press, Budapest and New
York, 2007.
Shin, Gi-wook. South Korean Anti-Americanism: A comparative
perspective. Asian
Survey, 36 (1996): 787-803.
8

Globalization and the "Korean Wave"

Jung-Sun Park, "What is Hallyu, the Korean Wave" in News and
Reviews (Asian Educational
Media Service, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies at the
University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign) Spring/Summer 2007, 3.
Jung-Sun Park, "The Korean Wave: Transnational Cultural Flows in
East Asia," in Korea at the
Center: Dynamics of Regionalism in Northeast Asia, eds.
Charles Armstrong, Gilbert
Rozman, Samuel Kim and Stephen Kotkin (Armonk, NY: M.E.
Sharpe, 2006),
244-256.
Keehyeung Lee, "Mapping Out the Cultural Politics of'the Korean
Wave' in Contemporary
South Korea," in East Asian Pop Culture: Analysing the Korean
Wave, eds. Chua Beng
Huat and Koichi Iwabuchi (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University
Press, 2008), 175189.
Optional:
Doobo Shim, "The Growth of Korean Cultural Industries and the
Korean Wave," in East
Asian Pop Culture: Analysing the Korean Wave, 15-31.
Jung-Sun Park, "Korean American Youth and Transnational Flows of
Popular Culture
Across
the Pacific," Amerasia Journal 30:1, 147-169.
Week 14 (11/19): Todays Korea
M
The Tokdo/Takeshima Debate, Anti-Korean Wave, Vietnamese Brides,
Immigration
Images: Seoul Chinatown Development Committee
Images: Kenkanryu (Anti-Korean Wave)
Eun Mee Kim and Jean S. Kang, "Seoul as a Global City with Ethnic
Villages,"
Korea Journal (Winter 2007): 64-99.
Kim Hyung-jin, "No 'real' Chinatown in S. Korea, the result of
xenophobic attitudes,"
Yonhap News (August 29, 2006), 1-4.
Yoon Ja-won, "Ethnic Chinese face uphill battle in Korea," The Korea
Herald (My 28, 2006).
Lee Ho-jeong, "Old Chinatown, new Chinatown," JoongAng Daily
(October 7, 2003).
Week 15 (11/26, 28)
M
Michael Baker, "Once shunned, Chinese in Korea courted again," The
Christian Science Monitor
9

(February 4. 2000).
Michael Ha, "History Backs Korea's Dokdo Sovereignty," The Korea
Times (August 2, 2008).
Michael Weinstein, "South Korea-Japan DokdoAakeshima Dispute:
Toward Confrontation,
Japan Focus (May 2006).
Alexis Dudden and Lee Jong-Heon, "Dokdo/Takeshima Cloud the
Future of Japan-Korea
Relations," Japan Focus (Sept. 11, 2008).
Choe Sang-hun, "Foreign Brides Challenge South Korean Prejudice,"
International Herald
Tribune (June 24, 2005).
Norimitsu Onishi, "Korean Men Use Brokers to Find Brides in
Vietnam," New York ' Times
(February 22, 2007).
Norimitsu Onishi, "Wed to Strangers, Vietnamese Brides Build Korean
Lives," New York
Times (March 30, 2008).
Invention of Korean Cuisine
W
Katarzyna Cwiertka, Dining Out in the Land of Desire: Colonial Seoul
and the Korean
Culture of Consumption, in Consuming Korean Tradition in
Early and Late Modernity.
_______________, "The Soy Sauce Industry in Korea: Scrutinizing the
Legacy of Japanese
Colonialism," Asian Studies Review 30 (Dec. 06).
Han Kyung-Koo, "Some Foods Are Good to Think: Kimchi and the
Epitomization of
National Character," Korean Social Science Journal 27.1 (2000).
Yang Young-Kyun, "Jajangmyeon and Gunggukjip: The Changing
Position and Meaning of
Chinese Food and Chinese Restaurants in Korean
Society," Korea Journal 45.2
(Summer 05).
Kim Kwang-ok, "Contested Terrain of Imagination: Chinese Food in
Korea," Changing
Chinese Foodways in Asia, edited by David Wu and Tan Cheebeng (Hong Kong:
Chinese University Press, 2001).
Hahm Hanhee, "Rice and Koreans: Three Identities and
Meanings," Korea Journal
(Summer 05).
Chu Young-ha, "Origin and Change in Kimch'i Culture, Korea
Journal 35.2 (Summer 95).
12/3,5

Study Period

10

Final exam -- see university schedule

Class Format and Requirements READ CAREFULLY

Attendance, participation, response papers (short assignments) (30%)
You are expected to complete the assigned readings and to bring those
readings to class, prepared to think aloud and participate in discussion and
debate. Your engaged presence is vital to the success of the course.
Attendance is mandatory and will be checked regularlyyour third
unexcused absence will lower your grade by a full letter. If for any reason
you cannot attend class, please inform the instructor in advance. In the case
of absences, only documented excuses (doctor's note, jury duty, and so on)
will be accepted. Except in cases of documented medical emergencies, you
will be penalized for any missed or late assignments. All assignments must
be submitted on time and in person (by you or someone else).
Response papers these one page (double-spaced) papers should deal
with topics from the readings and/or issues discussed in class. A response
paper, in that it is a response and not a summary, accomplishes one or both
of the following: your thoughtful reaction to one or more of these readings
(What appealed to you? What doesn't make sense? How do you understand
the author's position? Where do you come down on the issue? Etc.); and/or
the selection and analysis of a particularly notable quotation from one of the
readings, contextualized within the article's overall argument.
In-class midterm (30%)
In-class final exam (40%)
Classroom Expectations and Academic Integrity
Use of mobile phones in class is strictly prohibited. The use of laptops,
except as note-taking
devices, is frowned upon. I can read your faces like a book and can tell
when you are surfing the internet, on Facebook, or chatting.
All of the work you turn in should be your own original work.
Plagiarism is a serious offense and can result in disciplinary action up to
and including suspension or expulsion from the College.
Any form of plagiarism violates the Academic Honor Principle. Plagiarism is
defined as the submission or presentation of work, in any form, that is not a
student's own, without acknowledgment of the sources. With specific regard
to papers a simple rule dictates when it is necessary to acknowledge
sources. If a student obtains information or ideas from an outside source,
that source must be acknowledged. Another rule to follow is that any direct
quotation must be placed in quotation marks, and the source immediately
cited.
Religious Observances Policy
Some students may wish to take part in religious observances that
occur during this academic term. If you have a religious observance which
11

conflicts with your participation in the course, please meet with me before
the end of the second week of the term to discuss appropriate
accommodations.

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