HS Neuere Forschung Modernes Korea - Historical and Legal Issues on Modern Korea
Professor Jong Chol An (안종철)
Class: (Thursday) 14:00–16: 00
Room: 30
Course Description
This is a seminar about Korean society and history with a perspective of law and society/history from the late nineteenth to the twentieth century. It is specially designed for 6th semester students in order to prepare them for a BA thesis. Each week has good topics for a Final Paper so that students are expected to read reading assignments and prepare lively discussion. Since modern Korean society has various tensions such as colonialism, class, gender, and security etc, it is expected that law and society is a window through which we can understand social issues in Korea and find meaningful ways to solve many thorny questions. Thus we will pay close attention to the Koreans’ dynamic approaches to social and historical issues while dealing with legal topics. That approach would bring comparative perspective on Korea and other societies. Through this class you will obtain the general picture of the contemporary Korean society and its diverse issues.
Pre-Requirement: Modern Korean History.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING
1. 40% Class attendance, Presentation and Discussion (Everyone does presentation with a summary of a reading assignment).
2. 10% First Draft for a Final Paper due on May 28 (Wednesday) (at least one page with topic)
3. 20% Second Draft for a Final Paper due on June 18 (Wednesday) (at least three pages with bibliography)
4. 30% Final Paper (at least 10 pages) due at the end of summer semester.
5. Please read weekly reading assignment. Cf. means additional reading for your research, not necessarily for weekly reading.
6. As for your paper, I will let you know more specific guidelines during the semester. I recommend you to contact me during office hour for choosing a topic so that you can develop Mid-term paper into final one. If you really want to write another paper for final, it would be fine (mid-term rule applies to your final).
7. Please do not be absent from the class. The Policy on Absence in this school might strictly apply to you. Three absences in the semester would affect your grade very negatively. I will count two late appearances as one absence.
8. If you anticipate difficulty attending class or completing an assignment for any reason, please contact me as soon as possible. Special arrangements can be made, but not without prior notice.
Required and Optional Readings
Required Readings
1. Journal Articles and Book Chapters (I will put them into our library bookshelves)
2. Bruce Cumings, Korea’s Place in the Sun. NY and London: W.W. Norton, 1997, 2005.
Optional Readings (For General Background)
1. Michael E. Robinson, Korea’s Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2007.
2. Hermann Lautensach, Korea, eine Landeskunde auf Grund eigener Reisen und der Literatur. K. F. Koehler-Verlag, Leipzig, 1945.
3. Please refer to journal sources at www.jstore.org or muse.jhu.edu for your research.
Class Schedule
Week 1, April 10: Korea and Its Entrance into Modern World
Bruce Cumings, pp. 86-115.
Qs: What are various Korean approaches to Modern World? What were the reasons that Chosǒn dynasty did not respond to the western impact properly? Please find domestic and international reasons.
Week 2, April 17: Towards the End of Traditional Korea
Yi Tae-Jin, “Was Korea Really a “Hermit Nation”?,” Korea Journal, 38(4) (Winter 1998), pp. 5-35; Bruce Cumings, pp. 115-138.
Qs: What happened during 1880s up to 1905? What were three types of Korean approaches to modern world in government, elites, and peasants?
Week 3, April 24: Japanese Annexation Korea and Japanese Imperialism
Stewart Lone, “The Japanese Annexation of Korea, 1910: The Failure of East Asian Co-prosperity,” Modern Asian Studies, 25(1) (1991), pp. 143-173; Cumings, pp. 139-147.
Qs: Why did Korea become under Japanese imperial rule? What was the international context? What is the legacy in contemporary society?
Week 4, May 1: No Class due to Labor Day (Tag der Arbeit) Holiday
Week 5, May 8: Japanese Reform, Propaganda, and Korean Response in Early Colonial Period.
Marie Seong-Hak Kim, “Ume Kenjirō and the Making of Korean Civil Law, 1906-1910,” The Journal of Japanese Studies 34(1) (2008): 1-31; Andre Schmid, “Rediscovering Manchuria: Sin Ch’aeho and the Politics of Territorial History in Korea, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 56(1), 1997, pp. 26-46.
Qs: What were the Japanese Propaganda and “Reform” in colonial Korea? What are Korean responses to national crisis? Why was the military government so crucial in managing Korean colony?
Week 6, May 15: Colonial Korea and “Rule of Law” I: General Structure and Civil Law
Cumings, pp. 148-174; Edward I-te Chen, “The Attempt to Integrate the Empire: Legal Perspectives,” The Japanese
Colonial Empire, 1895-1945, edited by Ramon H. Myers and Mark R. Peattie (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1984); Marie Seong-Hak Kim, “Law and Custom under the Chosǒn Dynasty and Colonial Korea: A Comparative
Perspective,” Journal of Asian Studies 66(4) (2007): 1067-1097.
Qs: After the World War I, how much did Japanese colonial rule change? Why did the socialist/ communists get wide
influence over colonial Korea in the 1920s? What was the rule of law under the colonial state? What is the customary law
in colonial context and its legacy in post-1945 period?
Week 7, May 22: Colonial Korea and “Rule of Law” II: Criminal Law
Chulwoo Lee, “Modernity, Legality, and Power in Korea under Japanese Rule,” Colonial Modernity in Korea, edited by
Gi-wook Shin and Michael Robinson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 1999); 문준영,
“한국법원ˑ검찰 제도 속의 식민지 사법의 구조와 의식,” 정근식ˑ이병천 엮음, 『식민지유산, 국가형성,
한국민주주의 1』(책세상, 2012): 275-329.
Qs: What is the relationship between modernity and coloniality? How the colonial rule was possible? What is the legacy of colonial rule of law in post-1945 Korea?
Week 8, May 29: No Class due to the Accession of Christ (Christi Himmelfahrt) Holiday
1st Paper Draft Due on May 28 (Wednesday) at 6 PM.
Week 9, June 5: Colonial Historiography
Schmid, Andre. "Colonialism and the ‘Korea Problem’ in the Historiography of Modern Japan: A Review Article." The Journal of Asian Studies 59(4) (2000): 951-976; Mark E. Caprio, “Loyal Patriot? Traitorous Collaborator? The Yun Chiho Diaries and the Question of National Loyalty,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 7(3) (2006).
Qs. What are the issues of colonial historiography? What is the legacy of the war especially of the “pro-Japanese” issue?
Week 10, June 12: No Class due to Whitsun Holiday (Pfingstpause)
Week 11, June 19: No Class due to the Feast of Corpus Christi (Fronleichnam)
2nd Paper Draft Due on June 18 (Wednesday) at 6 PM.
Week 12, June 26: War Mobilization and the Brutal Legacy of the Pacific War
Cumings, pp. 174-184; John Haberstroh, “In re World War II Era Japanese Forced Labor Litigation and Obstacles to International Human Rights Claims in U.S. Courts,” 10 Asian L.J. 253 (2003); Carmen M. Argibay, “Sexual Slavery and the “Comfort Women” of World War II,” Berkeley Journal of International Law, 21 (2003), pp. 375-389.
Qs. Why did Japan mobilize Koreans for war? What are the “Comfort Women” and “Forced Laborers”? What is the legacy of the war especially of the “pro-Japanese” issue?
Week 13, July 3: The Cold War and the Rise of Two Different Countries
Cumings, ch. 4, pp. 202-236; Charles K. Armstrong, “The Cultural Cold War in Korea, 1945-1950,” The Journal of Asian Studies. 62(1)(2003), pp. 71-99; Jong Chol An, “No Distinction between Sacred and Secular: Horace H. Underwood and Korean-American Relations, 1934-1948,” Seoul Journal of Korean Studies, 23(2)(Dec. 2010), pp. 225-246.
Qs. Why did the USSR-USA Joint Commission fail in 1946 and 1947? What was the main issue? Who would be responsible for Korean division? Who are Syngman Rhee and Kim Il-sung?
Week 14, July 10: Korean Gender Issues and Neo-Confucianism
Hyunah Yang, A Journey of Family Law Reform in Korea: Tradition, Equality, and Social Change, 8 JOURNAL OF KOREAN LAW, 1(2008), pp.77-94; 양현아, “가족법을 통해 본 한국 가족의 식민지성과 ‘전통’문제,” 정근식ˑ이병천 엮음, 『식민지유산, 국가형성, 한국민주주의 1』(책세상, 2012): 504-550.
Qs: Who did decide the invasion of South Korea? What happened to Communist Bloc in late 1949 and early 1950? What were the motives on the part of Soviet Union and China when they entered into the war?
Week 15, July 17: South Korea: Authoritarianism and Democratization, Concluding Remarks.
Kuk Cho, “Tension between the National Security Law and Constitutionalism in South Korea: Security for What?” 15
BU Int'l LJ 125 (1997); Cf. Cumings, ch. 7, pp. 342-403 and In Sup Han, “Kwangju and Beyond: Coping with Past State
Atrocities in South Korea,” Human Tights Quarterly 27(2005), pp. 998-1045.
Qs: Why did Korea have authoritarian rule since 1948? In Korean democratization, what is the role of students? Why is
the Kwangju Democratization Movement important? What is legacy of the movement?
Final Paper Due at the end of summer vacation
* This schedule is subject to change.