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February 19, 2009
“Fourth Wave" in North and South Korea Relations: The U.S. Role toward a New Vision for Peace in Northeast Asia
A Lecture by Mr. Chung Dong-young
Monday, March 2nd, 2009 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Hussey Room
Michigan League
911 N. University
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Former South Korean Minister of Unification and Presidential Candidate to Address U-M Campus
Ann Arbor, Mich.– Chung Dong-young, former South Korean Minister of Unification and presidential candidate during the 2007 election, will deliver a lecture at 6:30 p.m., March 2 in the Hussey Room of the Michigan League located at 911 N. University Avenue in Ann Arbor.
Chung’s lecture, entitled “The ‘Fourth Wave’ in North and South Korea Relations,” will discuss the urgent task in Northeast Asia to overcome ongoing Cold War tensions and work toward reunification of the divided Koreas.
“In light of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to South Korea and China last week, Mr. Chung’s campus visit is an excellent opportunity for all of us to learn more about developments in the multilateral talks to maintain peace in Northeast Asia,” said David Chung, director of the Center for Korean Studies. “Mr. Chung’s visit will provide the U-M community with unique insight into the situation on the Korean Peninsula.”
During his tenure as the South Korean Minister of Unification from April 2004 until December 2005, Chung was credited for his hands-on policy approach and initiatives. This includes a lengthy meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il that was widely recognized for breaking the stalemate in the Six-Party Talks in 2005.
Chung was the presidential candidate of the United New Democratic Party in the 2007 Korean presidential election. Before entering politics, he was a journalist and the main news anchor of the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation. He is currently a visiting scholar at Duke University.
Chung's visit is sponsored by the Center for Korean Studies housed in U-M’s International Institute. The lecture is free and open to the public.
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February 12, 2009
Korea Foundation Graduate Fellowship 2009-2010
Deadline is February 13, 2009.
The Center for Korean Studies is pleased to announce new Korea Foundation Graduate Fellowships in Korean Studies. These two fellowships of $50K per student will be awarded by application to the Center for Korean Studies for the upcoming 2009-2010 academic year. Preference will be given to new, first year doctoral students in Korean studies. The application and the information packet will be posted on the CKS website in January 2009. Please contact the Center for any further information (cks.info@umich.edu)
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February 11, 2009
The Rise of a Politically Detached Korean Community in Manchuria in An Sugil's Rice Plants (1941)
A lecture by Hyun-jeong Lee
Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Free and open to the public
1080 S. University, Suite 1636, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
This talk explores the significance of the politically detached Korean community in Manchuria portrayed in An Sugil’s novella Rice Plants (1941), which was written and published in Manchuria. Considered to be based on the Manbosan (C: Wanbaoshan) Incident (1931), a crucial event of the Sino-Korean conflict in Manchuria over the Koreans’ construction of irrigation routes, Rice Plants depicts how an immigrant Korean community is formed through the incident. Based on textual analysis, I demonstrate that the emerging immigrant community in this novella is relatively .jpg)
detached from such political positions as anti-Japanese or anti-Chinese nationalism or pro-Japanese collaboration. Finally, the talk suggests that, given the historical turmoil around Manchuria in the 1930s and 40s, the imagination of such a politically detached community in Manchuria was possible for the Korean immigrants only in the political conditions of Manchuria: At that time the new puppet state Manchukuo was founded, and the Koreans could hold relatively ambiguous positions there in terms of their political allegiance. For a comparison, I introduce two completely nationalist narratives of the incident written decades later in South Korea and in Northeast China, respectively.
This lecture is sponsored by the Korea Foundation and a U.S. Department of Education Title VI Grant. For more information, please contact the Center for Korean Studies at 734-764-1825.
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Cross-Currents: the Cinemas of Japan, China and Korea
A Lecture by Tom Vick
Date: Tuesday, 02/17/2009; 4:30 PM - 6:30 PM
Location: Rackham Amphitheater 915 E. Washington Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Tom Vick explains how the cinemas of Japan, China, and Korea have influenced one another over the years.
In recent years, international co-productions have become more and more common in East Asian cinema. Movie stars from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and China now regularly form international casts in films such as Peter Chan’s Perhaps Love (which also featured Bollywood choreography), and Wong Kar-wai’s 2046. This talk traces the history of transnational collaboration in East Asian cinema, beginning in the early twentieth century, when the propaganda machinery of Japan’s imperial ambitions laid the groundwork for, and influenced the aesthetics of, film production across the region, to the present day, in which globalization has led to border-crossing movie stars, ambitious international co-productions, and fascinating experiments in popular filmmaking that mix and match genres, styles and cultural influences.
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February 10, 2009
A Complete Success!
On Saturday, February 7th, the Center for Korean Studies hosted a sold out showing of the animated film ”Empress Chung” at the Michigan Theater. Attended by a wide variety of guests, the film started after a short introduction by the Korean Studies Director David Chung. Many guests stayed for a short reception at the conclusion of the film and portrayed positive reflections on this unique Korean animation.
Please visit our online photo gallery for more Event Pictures
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February 09, 2009
Performances of Empire: Enumerative Governmentality and Imperialized Subjectivities in Late Colonial Korea
A Lecture by Todd Henry, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Colorado State University
Date: Wednesday, 03/04/2009; 04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Location: 1080 S. University, Suite 1636 School of Social Work Building
This presentation will argue for the importance of performativity in understanding the “imperial subjectification” (my transliteration of J: kominka; K: hwangminhwa) of colonized Koreans during the Asia-Pacific War (1937-45).In particular, I will show how late colonial power on the peninsula operated around an inter-related set of public performances – performances aimed at convincing official and non-official actors alike of the viability and efficacy of Japanese imperialism.The first part of this presentation will employ the concept of colonial governmentality to analyze one set of these performances: the production of official statistics quantifying (although not necessarily qualifying) ceremonial practices.As I will demonstrate, tracking the number of “loyal” Korean subjects who passed through the gates of Shinto shrines or Exposition grounds became a central concern of officials in convincing bureaucratic audiences that “imperial subjectification” was somehow succeeding.The second part of this presentation will investigate the micro-practices that these statistics aimed to enumerate, but could not necessarily ensure corresponded to the ideology of “imperial subjectification.”Using examples from shrine and exposition visits, I will show that these public performances constituted the burden of convincing their official audiences that, as individual subjects of the Emperor, they were willing to live and die on his behalf.
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Print Capitalism and the Nationalist Movement in Korea, 1890s-Early 1920s
A Lecture by Guest Michael Shin, Assistant Professor, Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University
Date: Wednesday, 03/18/2009; 04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Location: 1080 S. University, Suite 1636 School of Social Work Building
This talk is about the emergence of print capitalism in Korea in the early modern period and its role in the nationalist movement. The first part will examine the confluence of internal and external factors that led to the rise of a modern print industry in the 1890s. The second part focuseson the growth of the print industry after 1905 and its role in resistance against the Japanese. The third part examines the print industry during the early colonial period. At the beginning of the occupation, the Japanese authorities shut down all privately-owned vernacular newspapers, and because of Japan’s repressive publication laws, the print industry experienced little growth during the 1910s. After the March First Movement in 1919, the colonial government implemented the so-called “Cultural Policy” (Bunka seiji) that permitted a limited freedom of the press. The relaxation of publication laws was one factor that led to the explosive growth of the print industry and its development into a true print capitalism in the early 1920s. At the same time, the print industry became the center of domestic colonial politics, with newspapers serving as the headquarters of major social movements.
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