New M.A. Program Offered at Rutgers

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Beadle

Beginning in the fall 2013 semester, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at Rutgers, the state University of New Jersey, will offer a master’s degree in East Asian Languages and Cultures. The faculty includes scholars in the humanities disciplines of literature, history, religion, linguistics, and language. The program is designed for students interested in pursuing a Ph.D. degree in the United States as well as for those who wish to develop a general interest in East Asian humanities and cultures.

Those interested in the program should visit the department’s Web site for additional detail and application instructions: http://asianlanguages.rutgers.edu/graduate/master-of-arts. The deadline for fall admission is August 1; the deadline for spring admission is December 1.

Call For Papers: World Congress for Korean Politics and Society 2013

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Beadle

The World Congress for Korean Politics and Society is a biennial conference organized by the Korean Political Science Association (KPSA) to promote innovative and insightful discussions on Korean politics. This year’s Congress will be held August 22–23, 2013, at the Korea University Business School in Seoul.

The main theme of the Congress is “The World and Korean Politics: Influence and Contribution.” Under this theme, the Congress will raise questions about how world scholarship has influenced politics in Korea as well as how Korean scholarship has contributed to studies of politics in the world.

The deadline for submitting proposals is Monday, May 20, 2013. Proposals are invited for papers, full panels, and roundtable discussions on subthemes such as:

Issues in Research Methodology
Politics in Western Societies and Its Comparison with Asia
Korean Politics in Asian Societies
Korean Politics: View from Outside
Democracy and Governance
Korean Political Economy
Political Thoughts in Korea
North Korean Issues
Multicultural Issues in Korea
Globalization and Glocalization
World Security and Korean Peninsula
Electoral and Legislative Politics in Korea

Any panel or paper concerning issues of Korean politics is welcome, as long as it covers topics under the broad banner of “The World and Korean Politics: Influence and Contribution.”

Papers for presentation can be written either English or in Korean. Please indicate whether you wish to participate in an English panel or a Korean panel.

The KPSA will cover up to three nights of accommodations for participants from abroad in Holiday Inn Sungbuk and CJ House at Korea University.

To submit a proposal, panel suggestion, accommodation application, or conference registration, visit the Congress Web site at http://kpsa.or.kr/congress2013/.

Questions regarding the Congress should be directed to the program director at koreanpolitics2013@gmail.com.

Call for Papers: Sixth North American Workshop on Korean Literature

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Beadle

The Sixth North American Workshop on Korean Literature: NAOKOL 2013 will be held at Columbia University November 15, 2013, sponsored by the Literature Translation Institute of Korea and the Center for Korean Research and Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University.

Submissions are invited from those working in any discipline or field (for example, history, literature, film, queer studies, anthropology, Asian American studies, communications, visual culture) who are incorporating Korean literature and/or film from any period into their work in a significant way.

Among the aims of NAOKOL are to share ongoing projects with colleagues working in the field and to widely promote Korean literary and film studies. Submissions are welcome from scholars at any stage of their careers who are interested in presenting portions of their dissertations or book projects for discussion at the workshop. ABDs and junior scholars are particularly encouraged to apply.

Those interested in presenting their work at the workshop should send a 300-word abstract and short curriculum vitae to Prof. Theodore Hughes at th2150@columbia.edu. Travel and accommodation expenses will be defrayed to the greatest extent possible. The deadline for submissions is July 31, 2013.

EWC Brown-Bag Presentation: Korea’s “Creative Economy” Agenda

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Beadle

The East-West Center Research Program will present a brown-bag seminar titled “Korea’s ‘Creative Economy’ Agenda: Innovation, Growth and Korea-U.S. Economic Relations” on Wednesday, May 8, 2013, from 12 noon to 1:00 p.m. in Burns Hall room 3012. The speaker will be Sean Connell, a POSCO visiting fellow at the Center.

Connell is a former executive director of the U.S.-Korea Business Council and was concurrently director for Japan and Korea at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., managing programs and policy initiatives including U.S. business community efforts to secure approval of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. He was a Council on Foreign Relations 2011-2012 International Affairs Fellow in Japan, where he explored Japan’s innovation policies and related areas for Japan-U.S. collaboration. He holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.A. from George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He also has studied at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan.

This presentation will explore themes related to the policies of new Korean President Park Geun-hye, who has made developing a “creative economy”—through the convergence of science, technology and culture with industry—the core of her administration’s economic policy agenda. This policy focus reflects increasing recognition of the importance of innovation for Korea’s future economic growth and to address challenges such as rising social imbalances and demographic trends.

How Korea approaches solutions to these issues has broader ramifications, including for its future economic relations with the United States and other advanced economies likewise focused on generating new jobs and growth through innovation. Connell will consider potential areas where Korean and U.S. policymakers and stakeholders could increase cooperation around encouraging innovation-driven growth, including ways that the recently implemented U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement could augment Korea’s innovation imperatives.

For further information, contact Cynthia Wasa Nakachi at nakachic@eastwestcenter.org or telephone (808) 944-7439.

Lecture: The Making of the Urban Middle Class in South Korea and China

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Beadle

The University of Hawai’i at Mānoa Department of Political Science will present a lecture titled “The Making of the Urban Middle Class in South Korea and China” by Dr. Myungji Yang on Monday, April 29, 2013. The presentation will take place in Saunders Hall 624 (Harry Friedman Room) at 2424 Maile Way on the UH Mānoa campus, from 9:30 a.m. until 11:00 a.m.

Dr. Yang’s talk will address how the discourse about the middle class served to create fast-growing yet orderly market economies in South Korea (1961-1979) and China (1978-2008). She argues that state-sponsored middle-class formation served to strengthen a state vision of national development and modernization in both of these countries in spite of their different socioeconomic systems. A number of social-science studies have treated the middle class as a result of economic expansion. Little attention has been paid to how the state deliberately produced specific meanings, symbols, and values that were channeled through the middle class and how the rise of the middle class, in turn, influenced the political dynamics of developmental processes.

Drawing evidence from archival data and in-depth interviews, she seeks to demonstrate that the category of the middle class became a channel through which to showcase upward mobility in a time of growing social inequality. Tracing the processes of state-sponsored middle-class formation in these two countries, she focuses on state ideological projects that created an image of “developmental subjects” practicing disciplined lifestyles and effectively disseminated discipline throughout society. The creation and growth of this new middle class in relatively classless, egalitarian Korea and China could serve as evidence for authoritarian states to promote an improved standard of living and thus appeal to the rest of the population striving to enhance their livelihoods.

For further information about the talk, contact the Department of Political Science at (808) 956–8357; e-mail: polisci@hawaii.edu.