Robert M Oppenheim

May be repeated for credit when topics vary.  Asian Studies 378 and 379 may not both be counted.  Prerequisite: For Asian studies and Asian cultures and languages majors, twelve semester hours of upper-division coursework in Asian studies or Asian languages; for others, upper-division standing.

Overview: This is a course about contemporary social and political life in urban South Korea—to use a complex and problematic concept, about Korean modernity.  It focuses on present conditions and their historical background: on capitalism and development from the colonial era (1910-1945) to the present, on the perspectives of workers, white-collar employees, and students over time, on the lifestyles of the new middle class, and on the struggle for democracy and its aftermath.  We will read ethnographies of corporations, factory work, consumption, and activism, as well as accounts of popular culture and changing gender systems and roles.  We will also watch several recent films and examine other visual materials.

This course is designed as an introductory overview of Korean history, culture, and society from ancient times to the present.  It aims also to encourage students to locate their knowledge about Korea in relation to perspectives from other disciplines, while thinking critically about how history, culture, and society are understood.  This class has no prerequisites.

This course will examine major religious traditions of Korea, focusing on history and contemporary practice rather than origins, philosophical systems, or textual bases.  Topics will include shamanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, and new religions, each of which will be considered from a variety of anthropological, sociological, and historical angles. We will also explore the relation between religion and politics from the late 19th century to the present.  In the process, we shall seek also to ask a variety of broad empirical and conceptual questions.  How have religions in Korea been understood and used by various parties, and with what consequences?  Is “religion” a universal concept?  Can religion help explain political or economic change?  What intersections do religions have with ethics or with transnational imaginaries?

Readings: 

Laurel Kendall, Shamans, Nostalgias and the IMF.

Robert Buswell, The Zen Monastic Experience.

Timothy Lee, Born Again: Evangelicalism in Korea.

Articles on Blackboard

Grading/Assignments:

A) Attendance = 7.5%

B) Participation = 7.5%.

C) Five short (1-2 pp., double-spaced 12 pt.) reaction papers = 10% total

D) First test = 25%

E) Second test = 25%

F) Final paper (8-10 pp., double-spaced, 12 pt.) = 25%

This course provides an introduction to the history, central issues, and past and present conceptual frameworks of the academic study of South and East Asia.  Topics include the formation of classical Indology and Sinology, the place of Asia in 19th century social thought in relation to imperialism and nationalism, the establishment and transformation of classical and national canons, the historicity of comparative projects (comparative philology, comparative religion) and their categories, translation theory, essentialism and the occlusion of areas, area studies as a Cold War institutional paradigm, the critique of Orientalism and post-Orientalist debates, and the politics of Asian studies in the American academy.  We will also engage with major authors who have been important in conceptualizing Asia, e.g., Marx, Spencer, Maine, Weber, Foucault, Said, and Spivak.

Science, Technology, and Society in Contemporary Asia

Historical and critical studies of science and technology in their relation to social, cultural, and political processes have expanded greatly in recent years. Crucial questions have centered on the way that technologies and scientific concepts are formed and succeed, the place of interests in scientific practice, the politics of expertise and the issues this poses in political life, and the relation between technology and new forms of subjectivity. This course attempts to bring together recent writing that considers such topics in Asia. The course will also introduce ways of looking at science and address issues of its specific location in Asian contexts.

This course is designed as an introductory overview of Korean history, culture, and
society from ancient times to the present. It aims also to encourage students to locate
their knowledge about Korea in relation to perspectives from other disciplines, while
thinking critically about how history, culture, and society are understood. This class
has no prerequisites.

TEXTS:

Seth, Michael, A Concise History of Korea.
Cumings, Bruce, Korea’s Place in the Sun.
 

Colonialism and Korea

ANS 361

(CROSS-LISTED AS ANT 324L/AAS 325/ HIS 364G):

THE TWO KOREAS AND THE UNITED STATES

Uniques #30975/30365/35725/39835

Spring 2010

 

Meets:              TuTh 9:30-11, GAR 0.120

Instructor:         Robert Oppenheim

Office:              WCH 5.134

Tel.:                  471-7279

Email:               rmo@mail.utexas.edu

Office Hours:    Tu 1-3, Th 11-12

 

 

Overview: Drawing on history, anthropology, and political science, this course will focus on the relationship between North and South Korea, and between the Koreas and the United States, since 1945.  It aims to conceptualize the Korean War and Korean division as possessing political, social, and cultural dynamics that have had complex ramifications across space and time.  This is thus also a course in thinking about, and across, borders.  It finally seeks to understand the historical development of North Korea and, through doing this, aims to contextualize present political crises relating to human rights and nuclear security.

 

Course Activities:

 

BRING PAPER TO CLASS EVERY DAY.  I may sometimes ask you to write in class.  You also will be writing response papers and posting them online throughout the term, and these should help form the basis for class discussion.  Read not mainly for information—there are no information-based pop quizzes in this class—but for the argument, how it is constructed, and of course what perspective it brings on the triangular relationship between the Koreas and the U.S.

            I will occasionally lecture, when I need to explain historical background or the like, but I hope to have discussion as the basis for the class.  As a result, there will not typically be notes or outlines that I will provide to you.

 

Assignments/Grading:  Plus/minus grading will be used for this class.  Your grade will be based on:

 

A) 10 (of 11) online response paragraphs on ERes (10%)

B) 1 short (4-5) page research report assigned and due on set dates early in the course (20%) (first paper)

C) 1 short (one paragraph) précis of your second paper, due before spring break.  This is mostly designed to get you thinking about the book you will use for paper 2 early in the course (5%).

D) 1 slightly-longer (6-8) page critical review paper, based upon a book you read independently, due approximately 2/3 through the course (20%) (second paper)

E) 1 6-8 page policy-oriented paper, on one of a flexible menu of topics assigned during the last part of the course, due at the end of classes (25%) (third paper)

F) Attendance (10%)

G) Participation (10%)

 

A) Online response paragraphs: At irregular intervals, you will have the opportunity to submit an informal paragraph on class readings to the Discussion Board for this class on ERes – for full credit, you should do at least 10 (TEN) (out of a total of only 11) of these over the course of the term.  Submissions are due by MIDNIGHT on the night before class meets (midnight Monday-Tuesday for a Tuesday class, midnight Wednesday-Thursday for a Thursday class); try to post them even earlier so that other students have a chance to read what you write.  I may ask you to expand on what you have written in class. 

Don’t summarize – expand on a point or points in the readings for that class that you find interesting or questionable.  Don’t tell me reading X was good or was boring.  In general, I will grade these submissions on a credit/no credit basis, but I reserve the right to give partial credit if a given response is less than adequately engaged with the material.

 

B) First paper/research report: The first short paper/report will ask you to do a minor amount of outside research using a newspaper article or articles, website(s), or other texts.  Details will be given later; the general topic will be “legacies of the Korean War,” if you want to start thinking about it early.

 

C & D) Second (critical review) paper and précis: The second paper is to be a critical review essay on one book beyond the assigned class readings drawn from a list I will give you early in the course.  With prior permission, you might also write on a book (single-argument, not a collection of essays) not on the list, provided it is either topically or conceptually relevant to what we are talking about.  Please do not write on a book you are currently reading for another class. 

By a critical review I mean the sort of book reviews you might find at the back of an academic journal, in the New York Times Review of Books, etc.  You should certainly summarize the main points the author is making, his/her field of concern, his/her own positioning (who is the author and why does he/she write), and his/her argument.  But you should also evaluate.  Does the argument make sense?  What is the author leaving out?  Is this the best kind of book that might be written on a given topic?  Might the topic be conceptualized differently?  How does it compare to other works on related issues?  You should to some degree tie the book back to other issues we discuss in class and make specific reference to class materials.  More will be said about this assignment as it approaches, but early in the course you should try to choose and obtain the book you will write on.  My list will be placed on long-term reserve at PCL, giving you several days with the book after you check it out, but you might also consider purchasing it – remember that your fellow classmates will be in competition for the same books.

To help facilitate the process, I will ask you to hand in a précis on the book for your second paper early in the course; please tell me at that point if you have acquired it already.  By a précis, I mean a paragraph in which you give me a citation for the book you will use, tell me what it is about or what it seems to be about if you haven’t read it yet, and discuss why it is relevant or interesting.  If you do this, you will get full credit on the précis.

Do not tell me at the last minute that you couldn’t get a book – that just shows that you waited until the last minute.  I will not be sympathetic.

 

E) Third (policy-oriented) paper:  The third paper, assigned near the end of the course and due during after the end of classes, will ask you to make a policy argument.  You will be asked to spell out your assumptions and objectives and to engage with other competing arguments.  There should be some choice of topics; more will be said about this as the assignment approaches.

 

F) Attendance: I take attendance on random dates, and arrive at an attendance grade based upon that sample.  Yes, it is theoretically possible that you might be absent the days I take attendance, and only those days.  If this happens, you should play the lottery.  I will excuse absences for good reasons given to me in advance or (in emergencies) as soon as practical.  Lateness, if habitual or excessive, can count against you in the attendance column.

 

G) Class participation grade:  The general participation grade will be based on the quality and quantity of your participation in discussion.  In class writing, productive participation in group work, and the like also count here.  Active participation will help you, while less active participation will probably be neutral to your final grade. 

 

On reading drafts: I will happily read and comment on short sections of your papers (e.g. a thesis paragraph, or another paragraph where you have a specific problem) if you submit them to me by email sufficiently in advance of the due date (a week= good, 4-5 days=OK, 1 day=bad).  I will not read full drafts if you simply send them to me—too often, students who do this are simply looking for a step-by-step guide to what will get an A, rather than actively trying to figure out what will make a better paper.  If you have questions about the whole of a paper, you should instead come to talk to me during office hours, bringing what you’ve written, and I’ll work with you on it.  Let me also remind you of the existence of the Undergraduate Writing Center, which can be very helpful in putting papers together.

 

Academic Dishonesty/Cheating/Plagiarism can result in automatic course failure and a report to the appropriate Dean.  Your work on papers should be your own.  Also, I expect you to cite sources that you use, whether class texts or not—I will explain this early on.  A quotation or reference to a specific claim of an author merits a page citation, while for a more general reference to an author’s topic or point of view a general citation of the work as a whole will suffice.  You may use any style of citation you wish.  I do not care how you cite, I care that you cite.

 

Email:  I usually check email once or more a day, but not always, particularly on weekends.  Do not rely on me reading emails you send the night before a paper is due.

 

Cellphones/computers: Cellphones and other communication devices should be turned off or (if you truly need to be in contact) set for silent/vibration mode.  If you need to make or receive a call, please leave the room before you begin talking.  Don’t ask, just go.  Likewise if you need to use the bathroom.  Please do not abuse this policy.

            Don’t text in class. 

            I would prefer that you DO NOT use a computer during class, because most of this course should be about thinking about and discussing ideas, rather than taking notes on information.  What notes you must take you can take by hand.  If you require an exception to this policy, please talk to me early in the course.

 

Special Needs:  The University of Texas at Austin provides upon request academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities.  To determine if you qualify, please contact the Dean of Students at 471-6259, 471-4641 TTY.  If your needs are certified, I will work with you to make appropriate arrangements.

 

Religious Holy Day Observance:  If an assignment or exam falls due on a day when you are observing a religious holy day, I will work with you to find an acceptable alternative time to complete the assignment.

 

Readings:  The following books have been ordered and are available at the Coop:

 

Cho, Grace, Haunting the Korean Diaspora

Ryang, Sonia (ed), North Korea: Toward a Better Understanding

Armstrong, Charles, The North Korean Revolution

Cha, Victor and David Kang, Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies

Kang Ch’ol-hwan, Aquariums of P’yongyang.

 

            Other readings will be placed on E-reserve (NOT Blackboard) as (mostly) .pdf files that you can read on screen or (my recommendation) print and mark up.  E-reserve can be accessed from any computer connected to the UT system.  Go to http://reserves.lib.utexas.edu/courseindex.asp and search by the course number (ANS 361) or my name.  The required password to access materials for this class is TwoKor (capital letters matter).  This is for the use of students of this class only; please do not share the password with others.  The listing should be alphabetical by the author’s last name or (when there is no listed author) by the document title.

            Major readings (books) will also be placed on reserve at PCL (not UGL).  You should be able to take them out, use (copy) them for two hours, and return them.

 

Outline:

 

 

1/19  Introduction – GO HOME AND READ THE SYLLABUS!

 

Debating the Korean War

 

1/21 

 

Bruce Cumings, Origins of the Korean War Vol. 1 (1981), Preface and Ch. 1.  {On E-reserve}

 

1/26 

 

Cumings, Origins, Vol. 1, Chs. 3-5, 12.

 

1/28 

 

Online response paper 1 on Cumings to date

 

Cumings, Origins, Vol. 2 (1990), ch. 18

Henry H. Em, “‘Overcoming’ Korea’s Division: Narrative Strategies in Recent South Korean Historiography,” positions 1(2), 1993, pp. 450-485.

 

2/2

 

&&& First paper assigned &&&

 

Goncharov, Sergei N., John W. Lewis, and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War (1993), Preface and Chs. 5 and 7.

Gaddis, John Lewis, We Know Now: Rethinking Cold War History (1997), pp. 70-75.

Weathersby, Kathryn, “Korea 1949-50: To Attack, or Not to Attack?  Stalin, Kim Il Sung, and the Prelude to War,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin 5: 1-9.

Cumings, Bruce and Kathryn Weathersby, “An Exchange on Korean War Origins,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin 6/7: 120-122.

 

Assumptions In and Out: From Policy to Narrative to Political Identity in the US and South Korea

 

2/4

 

Films: Rio Grande, High Noon.

 

2/9

 

Online reaction 2 on Slotkin/Englehardt, or their relation to films

 

Slotkin, Richard, Gunfighter Nation, Chs. 11-12 (pp. 347-404).

Englehardt, Tom, The End of Victory Culture, Ch. 1.4 (pp. 54-65).

 

 

2/11

 

Online response paper 3 on Milliken or NSC-68

 

Cumings, Origins vol. 2, ch.1, pp. 24-32 only.

NSC-68, sections I-V, IX.  Can be found at http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-68.htm {also linked on ERes}

Milliken, Jennifer, “Interaction and Identity: Reconstructing the West in Korea,” in Cultures of Insecurity, Jutta Weldes et al. eds., (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1997), pp. 91-117.

 

2/16

 

&&& First paper due (in class) &&&

 

Gi-Wook Shin, Ethnic Nationalism in Korea (Stanford, 2006), chapter 5 on “Ilminjuûi and Modernization of the Fatherland”

Chong Myong Im, Ph.D. dissertation sections to be posted

 

The Making of Cold War Knowledge: POWs and Leaflets

 

2/18

 

Online reaction 4 on Robin chs. 7-8

 

Robin, Ron, The Making of the Cold War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex (2001), Introduction and chs. 7-8.

 

2/23

 

Robin, ch. 5

Chung Yong Wook, “Leaflets, and the Nature of the Korean War as Psychological Warfare,” The Review of Korean Studies 7(3): 91-116 (2004).

KOREAN WAR LEAFLETS (group work in class)

 

Meanwhile: The Formation of North Korea

 

2/25

 

Suh, Dae-sook, Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader (New York: Columbia, 1988), ch. 1 (pp. 1-14).

Armstrong, Charles, The North Korean Revolution 1945-1950 (Ithaca: Cornell, 2003), Introduction and chs. 1-2.

Foreign Languages Publishing House, Kim Il Sung: Short Biography, vol. 1 (P’yongyang: FLPH, 1973), ch. 1 (pp. 1-17).

 

3/2

 

Online reaction 5 on Suh, Kim Il Sung’s biography, or Armstrong so far

 

Armstrong, The North Korean Revolution, chs. 3-5.

 

3/4

 

            &&& Précis for Second Paper Due &&&

 

Armstrong, The North Korean Revolution, chs. 6-8 and Conclusion.

 

North Korea: Stalinist Totali(tariat)

 

3/9

 

Online reaction 6 on Kang/Rigoulot

 

Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot, Aquariums of Pyongyang (New York: Basic Books, 2002).

 

…Or What?: Versions of How Ideology, Spectacle, and Culture Work

 

3/11

 

Sonia Ryang, “Introduction” (pp. 1-22) and Ch. 3 “Biopolitics”, in Ryang ed., North Korea.

 

!!!!! SPRING BREAK!  WOO-HOO! !!!!!

 

3/23

 

Shin, Eun-hee, “The Socio-Political Organism: Religious Dimension of Juche Philosophy,” in Buswell, ed., Religions of Korea in Practice.

Carol Medlicott, “Symbol and Sovereignty in North Korea,” SAIS Review 25(2): 69-79.

 

3/25

 

Film: State of Mind

 

3/30

 

            Online reaction 7 on Chung or Wedeen

 

Steven Chung, “The Split Screen,” Ch 4 in Ryang ed., North Korea

Wedeen, Lisa, “Acting ‘As If’: Symbolic Politics and Social Control in Syria,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 40(3)[1998]: 503-523.

 

 

Memory and Identity in South Korea and the US

 

4/1

 

Yoon Taek-Lim, “The Politics of Memory in the Ethnographic History of a ‘Red’ Village in South Korea,” Korea Journal 32(4): 65-79, 1992.

Jager, Sheila Miyoshi, “Monumental Histories: Manliness, the Military, and the War Memorial.”  Public Culture 14(2): 387-409, 2002.

 

4/6

 

            &&& Second paper due &&&

 

Grace Cho, Haunting the Korean Diaspora, Intro and Ch. 1

 

4/8

 

            Online reaction 8 on Cho so far

 

Cho, Haunting, Chs. 2-3

 

4/13

 

            Cho, Haunting, Chs. 4-5 and Postscript

 

 “Anti-Americanism” in South Korea: History or Ontology

 

4/15

 

Online reaction 9 on Shin/Hoffman

 

Gi-Wook Shin, “Marxism, Anti-Americanism, and Democracy in South Korea: An Examination of Nationalist Intellectual Discourse,” positions 3(2)[1995]: 508-534.

Hoffman, Diane M., “Culture, Self, and ‘Uri’: Anti-Americanism in Contemporary South Korea,” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies 12(2)[1993]: 3-20.

 

The 1994 Agreed Framework and since

 

4/20

 

&&&& Third paper assigned &&&&

 

Oberdorfer, Don, The Two Koreas,  Chs. 11-14 (pp. 249-368). {Eres}

The 1994 Agreed Framework Between the U.S. and the DPRK.  {found at http://www.kedo.org/pdfs/AgreedFramework.pdf; also linked via E-Reserve}

 

4/22

 

Online reaction 10 on Armstrong and/or McCormack

 

Gavan McCormack, “North Korea and the Birth Pangs of a New Northeast Asian Order,” Ch. 1 in Ryang ed., North Korea

Charles Armstrong, “Socialism, Sovereignty, and the North Korea Exception,” Ch. 2 in Ryang, ed., North Korea

 

Human Rights Week

 

4/27

 

Seymour, James D., “The Exodus: North Korea’s Out-Migration,” from The Future of U.S.-Korean Relations: The Imbalance of Power {forthcoming May 2006, Routledge}.

Lee, Karin and Adam Miles “North Korea on Capitol Hill,” from ibid.

House Resolution 4011, 108^th Congress, The North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 {on EReserve}.

 

4/29

 

Online reaction 11 on Park/Morris-Suzuki (last reaction paper)

 

Park, Hyun Ok, “The Poltics of Unification and Neoliberal Democracy,” Ch. 5 in Ryang, North Korea

Morris-Suzuki, Tessa, “Refugees, Abductees, ‘Returnees,’” Ch. 6 in Ryang

 

 

 

What is To Be Done?: Nuclear Weapons and the Present Security Crisis

 

5/4

 

Victor Cha and David Kang, Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies (New York: Columbia, 2003), Intro and chs. 1-4.

 

5/6

 

Cha and Kang, chs. 5-6.

The Nautilus Institute, “North Korea and Nuclear Weapons—Policy Options,” http://www.nautilus.org/DPRKBriefingBook/uspolicy/issue.html. {Linked on E-Reserve}

Selig Harrison, “Did North Korea Cheat?” Foreign Affairs Jan/Feb 2005.  {ERes}

ACT Interview with Undersecretary of State John Bolton, http://www.nautilus.org/DPRKBriefingBook/uspolicy/ACTinterview.html. {Eres}

 

5/7 Friday of last week of class – Final papers due, my office, 5 pm

ANS 390

(CROSS-LISTED AS ANT 391):

ANTHROPOLOGY OF EAST ASIA

Uniques #31095/30555

Tu3:30-6:30, CAL 419

Spring 2010

 

Instructor:         Robert Oppenheim

Office:              WCH 5.134

Tel.:                  471-7279

Email:               rmo@mail.utexas.edu

Office hours:     Tu 1-3; Th 11-12

 

Description:  Anthropology of East Asia is a graduate level course designed both for anthropologists and for non-anthropologists interested in East Asia.  It has two primary goals.  The first is simply to consider contemporary topics, approaches, and frameworks in anthropologies focused on East Asia in a way useful to non-anthropologists and anthropologists alike; I group recent writings around a selection of major and minor themes.  The second is to forward a more explicit discussion of the complex intersections of theory, topic, and area focus.  Consider the following:

 

a) Anthropologists, often, define themselves by topic or approach, rather (or more than) the geographical area of their research.  E.g., in conversations at conferences, “I do development” often trumps “I do West Africa.”

 

b) Anthropologists of East Asia are sometimes exceptions to rule a.

 

Understanding this and its effects on the political economy of knowledge involves keeping in mind a host of tensions, overlapping histories, and divergent and convergent traditions.

 

Readings: Readings for this course will be available in one or more of three places: ERes (password: AnthEA), in databases that you can access via the UT library (American Anthropologist/Ethnologist are indexed by Anthrosource and JStor), or as books.  I’ve ordered the following books, which will also be on reserve at PCL:

 

Aihwa Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception

Jesook Song, South Koreans in the Debt Crisis

Lisa Rofel, Desiring China

David Palmer, Qigong Fever

Heonik Kwon, Ghosts of War in Vietnam

Christopher Nelson, Dancing with the Dead

Laura Miller, Beauty Up

Ian Condry, Hip-Hop Japan

 

Note that I don’t expect you to read every word of books.  I don’t.  Read enough to understand what is going on and to form an opinion.  Read with graduate-level questions in mind: What “moves” of theory, method, or presentation are being made?  What evidence is being presented, how, and is it sufficient?  What are the assumptions and conclusions?  (In short, how does a book legitimate its existence?)  What possibilities or alternatives does it suggest?

 

Assignments:

 

There are five main assignments for this class; grading percentages are shown in parentheses:

 

1) Presentation on one week’s readings and leading of class discussion (10%): I’m thinking something in the range of a 15 minute presentation on key issues at the beginning of class, followed by some direction of discussion to issues you think are important.  This presentation can be more or less evaluative (beyond “this sucks,” please) at your discretion.

 

2) Presentation on your final paper topic (10%): This more formal presentation should be 15-20 minutes, the length of the standard conference presentation.  We will divide up slots for these presentations (followed by questions) over the last two classes of the term.  As for what this presentation should be about, see #4, below.

 

3) Written Assignment #1: Report on Asian Anthropologies/Anthropologies of Asia (6-8 pp; 20%): This assignment is meant to give you the opportunity to explore more fully contemporary tendencies, and relations between area and topical or theoretical concern, relating to one specific area of Asia.

            Pick ONE journal that publishes a lot of cultural/social anthropology specifically focused on East Asia or some sub-area.  This can be an English-language anthropology journal (e.g., Asian Anthropology), an interdisciplinary or area studies journal with a significant anthropological presence (e.g., Korea Journal, Journal of Japanese Studies), or the Asian-language or multilingual journal of an Asian anthropological society (e.g., Hanguk Munhwa Illyuhak, Bunkajinruigaku (zasshi? – whatever it’s called now), Taiwan Journal of Anthropology) or an adjacent discipline (e.g., Pigyo Minsokhak – “Comparative Folklore”).  Skim/review developments in this journal over the last 5-10 years.  Are there specific themes, concerns, or approaches that seem to predominate?  Are there tendencies of a “local tradition” of anthropology that you can detect, or not (and note that U.S. anthropology of Asia is a “local tradition” as well…).  Illustrate with reference to individual articles.

 

4) Written Assignment #2 (ca. 20 pp.; 40%): Topical Review of Literature or Topical Term Paper

 

I know you are not, many of you, anthropologists.  On the other hand, anthropologists study just about everything, and it can be useful to know about anthropological approaches or theories connected with different topics even if you never plan to do ethnography.  With those considerations in mind, for your big paper, you have two options:

            Option 1: A structured and thematized review of literature on a given topic.  Maybe you are interested in anime?  If so, you might want to know what is going on in the anthropology of transnational media.  Or you could review the anthropology of civic festival, of political violence, of digital technologies and their users, of advertising, etc.  Note that most of these topical foci will take you well beyond a focus on Asia.

            Anyway, if you choose this option I expect something akin (albeit on a smaller scale) to what you would find in Annual Review of Anthropology – that  is, a review in which you have imposed some structure by identifying different approaches or tendencies in the literature.  I expect you to consider at least 20 individual sources (books/articles), but that does NOT mean you have to consider them at equal length or with equal weight.  Some books or articles make paradigms; others only follow them – the trick is to figure out which.

            Option 2: A more conventional term paper.  You can also write on your major research or some other topic of interest.  If you do this, however, I expect you to bring some anthropological considerations to the table.

 

5) General Class Participation (20%)

 

Special Needs:  The University of Texas at Austin provides upon request academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities.  To determine if you qualify, please contact the Dean of Students at 471-6259, 471-4641 TTY.  If your needs are certified, I will work with you to make appropriate arrangements.

 

Religious Holy Day Observance:  If an assignment or exam falls due on a day when you are observing a religious holy day, I will work with you to find an acceptable alternative time to complete the assignment.

 

 

 

1/19 Course introduction

 

1/26 Interlude: Discipline, Area, History: Formatting some questions

 

Takami Kuwayama, “The ‘World-System’ of Anthropology: Japan and Asia in the Global Community of Anthropologists,” in Yamashita, Bosco, and Eades, eds., The Making of Anthropology in East and Southeast Asia, pp. 35-56.  (New York: Berghahn, 2004).

 

Kwang-Ok Kim, “The Making and Indigenization of Anthropology in Korea,” in ibid., pp. 253-85.

 

Keelung Hong and Stephen O. Murray, “American Anthropologists Looking through Taiwan to See “Traditional” China, 1950-1990,” in Hong and Murray, Looking Through Taiwan, pp. 48-74. (Lincoln: U Nebraska, 2005).

 

Robert Oppenheim, “Revisiting Hrdlicka and Boas: Asymmetries of Race and Anti-imperialism in Interwar Anthropology,” American Anthropologist, March 2010.

 

2/2 Unit 1: Political Economy and Issues of Neoliberalism

 

Aihwa Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception.

 

2/9 Jesook Song, South Koreans in the Debt Crisis.

 

***Give me some idea of your plans for Written Assignment #1 by this date***

 

2/16 Lisa Rofel, Desiring China

 

2/23 Unit 2: Sciences and Nonhuman worlds

 

Matsutake Worlds Research Group, “A New Form of Collaboration in Cultural Anthropology: Matsutake Worlds,” American Ethnologist 36(2): 380-403.

 

Anna Tsing and Shiho Satsuka, “Diverging Understandings of Forest Management in Matsutake Science,” Economic Botany 62(3): 244-53.

 

Timothy K. Choy, “Articulated Knowledges: Environmental Forms after Universality’s Demise,” American Anthropologist 107(1): 5-18.

 

3/2 David Palmer, Qigong Fever

 

3/9 Interlude: Texts and Spaces: Critical Theories and Anthropology

 

Maeda Ai, Text and the City, selections TBA {ERes}

 

Written assignment #1 due

 

Spring Break

 

3/23 Unit 3: History, Memory, and Religious Practice

 

Heonik Kwon, Ghosts of War in Vietnam

 

{possibility of rescheduling this date – TBA}

 

***Please give me some idea (preferably on paper or by email) of your plans for Written Assignment #2 by this date, if not before***

 

3/30 Christopher Nelson, Dancing with the Dead

 

4/6  Laurel Kendall, “Of Hungry Ghosts and Other Matters of Consumption in the Republic of Korea: The Commodity Becomes a Ritual Prop,” American Ethnologist 35(1): 154-70.

 

Manduhai Buyandelgeriyn, “Dealing with Uncertainty: Shamans, Marginal Capitalism, and the Remaking of History in Postsocialist Mongolia,” American Ethnologist 34(1): 127-47.

 

Christoph Brumann, “Outside the Glass Case: The Social Life of Urban Heritage in Kyoto,” American Ethnologist 36(2): 276-99.

 

4/13 Unit 4: Popular Cultures

 

Laura Miller, Beauty Up

 

4/20 Ian Condry, Hip-Hop Japan

 

4/27 Student presentations (1)

 

5/4 Student presentations (2)

 

5/7 Friday: Written Assignment #2 due

 

 

ANS 301M: 

INTRODUCTION TO KOREAN CULTURE AND HISTORY 

Unique #31025 

Fall 2009 

 

Meets:   TuTh 12:30-2:00, CBA 4.326 

Instructor: Robert Oppenheim 

Office:  WCH 5.134 

Tel.:   471-7279  

Email:   rmo@mail.utexas.edu 

Office Hours: Tu 2-3, Th 10-12 or by appointment 

 

Overview:  This course is designed as an introductory overview of Korean history, 

culture, and society from ancient times to the present.  It aims also to encourage students 

to locate their knowledge about Korea in relation to perspectives from other disciplines, 

while thinking critically about how history, culture, and society are understood.  This 

class has no prerequisites. 

 Note: some of you may have studied Korean history in middle or high school.  Do 

not let this make you complacent.  To put it bluntly, knowing the facts and the standard 

narrative of Korean history will not be enough if you can’t critically analyze perspectives 

and interpretations.  This is what separates college history from high school history. 

 

Course Activities:  Class lectures will be supplemented with films, slides, and other 

visual materials.  Discussion is also important; students who contribute observations 

and/or questions will find this reflected in their class participation/attendance grades! 

 

Assignments/Grading: Your grade will be based on 

 

 1 map quiz (4% of total grade) 

 2 tests during the term (20% of total grade each for a total of 40%) 

 1 final exam (30% of total grade) 

 4 short reaction papers (one page or so each; 4% each for 16% total) 

 Class participation/attendance (10% of total grade) 

 

The two tests during the term will involve ID (identification) questions requiring a 

one paragraph response.  A good answer will not only identify a given term, but explain 

its significance in some depth (we will discuss this further in class).  The final exam will 

consist of both IDs and one or two essay questions.  ID QUESTIONS USED ON 

EXAMS WILL BE DRAWN FROM A LIST OF KEY CONCEPTS I WILL POST 

EACH WEEK.  If you use these posted documents as guides for study and preparation, 

you should do fine on exams. 

The two tests during the term will be based only on a portion of the Key Concepts.  

The final exam, however, is CUMULATIVE.  Don’t be surprised come December. 

Each of the four short reaction papers (assigned throughout the term; 1-2 pp. 

each) will ask you briefly to consider a specific issue and present an argument.  Grading 

will be based on the quality of your argument, your ability to support it (where 

appropriate), and your writing. 

All papers must be submitted at the beginning of class by the date indicated.  Late 

papers will not be accepted without prior consultation.  Likewise, I will not accept email 

submissions without prior permission and a good reason.  After papers have been 

returned and grades posted, it is your responsibility to inform me if yours is missing 

ASAP. 

I will take attendance on random days throughout the term.  Students who are 

present will get a point; those who are absent, without notification, will not.  Class 

participation will be factored in to arrive at the final attendance/participation grade. 

 I will make use of plus/minus grading.  Generally, I regard averages >=92 

(rounded) as an A, 89-91 as an A-, 87-88 as a B+, 82-86 as a B, and so on at equivalent 

points down the scale. 

 

Academic Dishonesty/Cheating can result in automatic course failure and a report to the 

appropriate Dean.  Your work on exams and papers should be your own. 

 

Email:  I usually check email once or more a day, but not always, particularly on 

weekends.  Do not rely on me reading emails you send the night before an exam or paper 

is due. 

 

Cell phones: Cell phones and other communication devices should be turned off or (if 

you truly need to be in contact) set for silent/vibration mode.  During exams, I will insist 

that they be completely off.  If you need to make or receive a call, please leave the room 

before you begin talking.  Don’t ask, just go.  Likewise if you need to use the bathroom 

(during exams, I will allow only one person to leave at a time, and without his/her 

belongings).  Please do not abuse this policy. 

 Also, please do not be text messaging your friends during class.  If I see your 

hands fiddling beneath the desk, I will assume the worst. 

 

Laptop computers in the classroom are likewise a growing issue in higher education 

circles.  They can be very useful in taking notes—many of you, I’m sure, type faster than 

you write—but put to other uses they can be an immense distraction to you and others 

around you.  Let me put it this way: if I look at your laptop screen during class, I had 

better see note taking (rather than internet surfing, games, studying for another class, or 

catching up on reading you didn’t do).  If not, you will lose the privilege of using a 

computer in class for the rest of the term. 

 

During tests no electronics (beyond wristwatches) will be permitted on your desks.  This, 

unfortunately, goes for electronic dictionaries as well. 

 

Special Needs:  Any student with a documented disability who requires academic 

accommodations should contact Services for Students with Disabilities at 471-6259 

(voice) or 1-866-329-3986 (Video Phone) as soon as possible to request an official letter 

outlining authorized accommodations. 

 

Religious Holy Day Observance:  If an assignment or exam falls due on a day when you 

are observing a religious holy day, I will work with you to find an acceptable alternative 

time to complete the assignment. 

 

Readings:  The reading load for this class is variable.  Read intelligently.  For some 

people, studying Korea can present a morass of unfamiliar details.  The reason I will give 

you key concepts weekly is not only towards tests and exams, it is also to help you pick 

out what is important while doing the reading to begin with. 

The following books have been ordered and are available at the Coop.  Each is 

also on 2-hour reserve at the PCL library.  Please let the Coop (and me) know if a book 

that you need is out of stock.  I recommend that you buy relatively early in the term, since 

the Coop sometimes returns books to their publishers on short notice: 

 

Seth, Michael, A Concise History of Korea. 

Cumings, Bruce, Korea’s Place in the Sun. 

[optional] Russell, Mark James, Pop Goes Korea 

 

 Other readings (as well as course documents such as weekly lists of key concepts, 

the map quiz review, etc.) will be placed on E-reserve.  These are .pdf copies of articles 

and the like; you can read them on screen or (my recommendation) print them so you can 

mark them up.  E-reserve can be accessed from any computer connected to the UT 

system.  Go to http://reserves.lib.utexas.edu/courseindex.asp and search by the course 

number or my name.  The required password to access materials for this class is KorHC 

(capital letters matter).  This is for the use of students of this class only; please do not 

share the password with others.  The listing should be alphabetical by the author’s last 

name or (when there is no listed author) by the document title. 

 Optionally, the readings on ERes will also be available in course packet form—I 

will have details early in the class. 

 

Schedule: 

 

8/27 Introduction and course concepts - IMPORTANT 

 

Read the document “Map Quiz Review” on the E-Reserve site for this class 

 

9/1 Beginnings?: The Korean? Peninsula? in Ancient Times 

 

Seth, Concise History of Korea, Intro and ch. 1. 

Lee, Peter H., Sourcebook of Korean Civilization, vol. 1, pp. 6-7 {“Tangun”} and pp. 

8-9 {“Yü Huan: Ancient Korea and Yen”} 

 

9/3 The Three Kingdoms (first century B.C.-935 A.D.) 

 

Map Quiz (in class, 5 minutes) 

 

Seth, chs. 2-3. 

Lee, Sourcebook, vol. 1, pp. 24-35 {“Founders of Tribal Federations”} 

O’Rourke, Kevin, The Book of Korean Poetry: Songs of Shilla and Koryô (Iowa 

City: U Iowa Press, 2006), pp. 10-21. {on hyangga} 

 

9/8 Discussion: Ancient History, Modern Debates 

 

Ch’oe, Yông-ho, “Reinterpreting Traditional History in North Korea,” Journal of 

Asian Studies 40(3)[1981]: 503-523. 

Lee, Chong-sik, “History and Politics in Japanese-Korean Relations: The Textbook 

Controversy and Beyond,” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies 2(4)[1983]: 69-93.  

 

Reaction paper 1 assigned 

 

9/10 Koryô (918-1392) 

 

Seth, chs. 4-5. 

Lee, Sourcebook, vol. 1, pp. 414-419 {“Chinul: Straight Talk on the True Mind” and 

“Chinul: Secrets on Cultivating the Mind”} 

Lee, Sourcebook, vol. 1, pp. 428-438 {especially pp. 436-439 “Monk Myoch’ông’s 

Use of Geomancy”} 

Lee, Sourcebook, vol. 1, pp. 373-77 {“Pak Ch’o: Anti-Buddhist Memorial”} 

 

9/15 Mongol Rule: Korean and Global Perspectives 

 

Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony, chs. 1, 5. 

 

Reaction paper 1 due 

 

9/17 Test 1 (in class) 

 

9/22 Early Chosôn (1392-1592) 

 

Seth, chs. 6-7. 

Chun, Hae-jong, “Sino-Korean Tributary Relations in the Ch’ing Period,” in John K. 

Fairbank, ed., The Chinese World Order (Cambridge: Harvard, 1968), pp. 90- 

111. 

Wagner, Edward W., “The Ladder of Success in Yi Dynasty Korea,” Occasional 

Papers on Korea 1: 1-8. 

 

9/24 Confucianization as Ideological Process: The Making of “Traditional” Korea 

 

Haboush, JaHyun Kim, “The Confucianization of Korean Society,” in Gilbert 

Rozman ed., The East Asian Region: Confucian Heritage and Its Modern 

Adaptation, pp. 84-110. 

Read ahead in Seth, pp. 206-07 from ch. 8. 

 

9/29 Han’gûl and Rice: Transformative Technologies of Everyday Life 

 

Kim-Renaud, Young-Key, ed. King Sejong the Great: The Light of 15th Century 

Korea (Washington: International Circle of Korean Linguistics, 1992), pp. 9-12, 

21-24, 43-50, and 53-60 {i.e. articles by Don Baker, Milan Hejtmanek, S. 

Robert Ramsey, and Pokee Sohn}. 

Lee, Sourcebook, vol. 1, pp. 519-20 {Ch’oe Malli’s dissent} 

Braudel, Fernand, “Preface,” in The Structures of Everyday Life, vol. 1, pp. 27-29.   

Bray, Francesca, “Introduction,” in The Rice Economies: Technology and 

Development in Asian Societies, pp. 1-7. 

Yi Ch’un-yông, “A Historical Survey of Agricultural Techniques in Korea,” Korea 

Journal 14(1): 21-27. 

 

10/1 Visualizing Chosôn Society, part I 

 

Film: Chunhyang  

 

10/6 Visualizing Chosôn Society, part II 

 

Film: Chunhyang 

 

10/8 Late Chosôn (1592-ca. 1800): The Imjin War and Its Aftermath 

 

Seth, ch. 8. 

Yôngho Ch’oe, Peter H. Lee, and Wm. Theodore de Bary, eds., Sources of Korean 

Tradition, vol. 2 (New York: Columbia, 2000), pp. 26-27 (“Chông Yagyong: 

The Roots of Royal Authority”), 70-88 (“Reform Proposals: Land Reform”) and 

181-188 (“Culture and National Identity: New Perspectives on History”). 

 

10/13 Tales of the Base and the Exalted: The Problem of Korean Slavery, and a Lady’s 

View on a Royal Mystery 

 

Lee, Sourcebook, vol. 1, pp. 327 {“Inheritance of Slave Status” – on Koryô} 

Wagner, Edward W., “Social Stratification in Seventeenth-Century Korea: Some 

Observations from a 1663 Seoul Census Register,” Occasional Papers on Korea 

1: 36-54.  {Especially the first four pages and the conclusion.} 

Palais, James B., “A Search for Korean Uniqueness,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic 

Studies 55(2): 409-425. 

Ch’oe, Yôngho, et al., Sources, vol. 2, pp. 159-61 {“Yu Hyôngwôn: Slaves”} 

Haboush, JaHyun Kim, The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyông, pp. 241-336 (“The Memoir 

of 1805”).  Other sections (particularly pp. 6-35) optional. 

 

Reaction paper 2 assigned 

 

10/15 The Nineteenth Century 

 

Seth, ch. 9. 

Cumings, Bruce, Korea’s Place in the Sun, ch. 2. 

 

10/20 Some Elite and Popular Responses 

 

Ch’oe, Yôngho, et al., Sources, vol. 2, pp. 140-42 {“Yi Hangno: Sinify the Western 

Barbarians”} 

Schmid, Andre, “Decentering the ‘Middle Kingdom’: The Problem of China in 

Korean Nationalist Thought, 1895-1910,” in Brook and Schmid, eds., Nation 

Work: Asian Elites and National Identities (Ann Arbor: U. Michigan, 2000), pp. 

83-107. 

The Independent (newspaper), selections from 1896 (April 7, April 30, August 22, 

September 5, October 22). 

Ch’oe, Yôngho, et al., Sources, vol. 2, pp. 228-35 and 262-72 (on Tonghak). 

 

Reaction paper 2 due 

 

10/22 Japanese Colonialism in Korea (1905-1945) 

 

Cumings, KPIS, ch. 3. 

Ch’oe, Yôngho, et al., Sources, vol. 2, pp. 336-39 {“Declaration of Independence”} 

 

10/27 Civilization and Culture in Contest 

 

Annual Report on the Administration of Chosôn 1923-4 (selections on ERes). 

Komatsu Midori, “The Old People and the New Government,” Transactions of the 

Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 4(1), 1912, pp. 1-12. 

Sin Ch’aeho, “What is History? What Shall We Study in Korean History?”, in Ch’oe, 

Lee, and de Bary, Sources, vol. 2, pp. 317-319. 

Allen, Chizuko T., “Northeast Asia Centered Around Korea: Ch’oe Nam-sôn’s View 

of History,” Journal of Asian Studies 49(4), 1990, pp. 787-806. 

 

10/29 Complex Stories: Some Colonial Experiences 

 

Kang, Hildi, Under the Black Umbrella, ch. 5 (pp. 49-60) and chs. 11-12 (pp. 111- 

129). 

Kim San and Nym Wales, Song of Ariran (New York: John Day, 1941), Chs. I (pp. 

3-10), XVI (pp. 140-146), XVII (pp. 147-151), and XXV (pp. 211-216). 

Yi Sang, “Wings,” in Peter H. Lee, ed., Flowers of Fire (Honolulu: University of 

Hawaii, 1974), pp. 34-57. 

Howard, Keith, ed., True Stories of the Korean Comfort Women (London: Cassell, 

1995), pp. 41-49 {“Kim Tôkchin”} and 95-103 {“Yi Okpun”}. 

Yang, Hyunah, “Re-membering the Korean Military Comfort Women: Nationalism, 

Sexuality, and Silencing,” in Elaine H. Kim and Chungmoo Choi, eds., 

Dangerous Women: Gender and Korean Nationalism (New York: Routledge, 

1998), pp. 123-139. 

 

11/3 Test 2 (in class) 

 

11/5 The Post-Liberation Cauldron and the Origins of Korean Division (1945-50) 

 

Cumings, KPIS, ch. 4. 

 

11/10 The Korean War (1950-53) and its Aftermath 

 

Cumings, KPIS, ch. 5. 

Chôn Kwangyong, “Kapitan Ri,” in Marshall Pihl and Bruce and Ju-chan Fulton, 

eds., Land of Exile: Contemporary Korean Fiction, pp. 58-83. 

Kang Sôk-kyông, “Days and Dreams,” in Words of Farewell: Stories by Korean 

Women Writers (Seattle: Seal Press, 1989). 

 

Reaction paper 3 assigned 

 

11/12 South Korean Industrialization 

 

Cumings, KPIS, ch. 6. 

Park Chung Hee, The Country, The Revolution, and I (Seoul: Hollym, 1970[1962]), 

pp. 165-179 {“What We Should Do and How”}. 

Jang Jip Choi, “Political Cleavages in South Korea,” in Hagen Koo, ed., State and 

Society in Contemporary Korea (Ithaca: Cornell, 1993), pp. 1-50. 

 

11/17 The Political Context: South Korean Authoritarianism and the Democratic 

Movement 

 

Cumings, KPIS, ch. 7. 

Ch’oe, Yôngho, et al., Sources, vol. 2, pp. 401-11 {“Kim Chiha: ‘Five Bandits’”} 

 

Reaction paper 3 due 

 

11/19 Memory, History, and the Minjung 

 

Linda S. Lewis, Laying Claim to the Memory of May, pp. 3-71 {Eres} 

Nancy Abelmann, Echoes of the Past, Epics of Dissent (Berkeley: California, 1996), 

pp. 20-38 {“The Minjung Imaginary”}. 

Namhee Lee, “The South Korean Student Movement: Undonggwon as a 

Counterpublic Sphere,” in Korean Society, Charles Armstrong ed. (London: 

Routledge, 2002), pp. 132-164. 

 

11/24 North Korean Politics and Society 

 

Kim Ilsông, “On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in 

Ideological Work,” in Ch’oe, Lee, and de Bary eds., Sources, vol. 2, pp. 420-425. 

Andrei Lankov, North of the DMZ, parts 4, 8, 18, and “In Lieu of a Conclusion.” (pp. 

66-76, 125-140, 305-330) 

 

Reaction Paper 4 Assigned 

 

11/26 ***THANKSGIVING – NO CLASS*** 

 

12/1 Contemporary South Korea: Politics 

 

Sunhyuk Kim, “Civil Society in South Korea: From Grand Democracy Movements 

to Petty Interest Groups?” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies 15(2): 81-97 

Laurel Kendall, ed., Under Construction, chs. 1 (Intro) and 4 (Seungsook Moon) 

 

Reaction Paper 4 due 

 

12/3  [optional reading] Russell, Pop Goes Korea 

 

Final Exam Thursday, 12/10, 2-5 pm, location TBA (tentative) 

Discussion of various problems involving language, history, and culture in Asia.  Specific offerings are listed in the Course Schedule.  Some topics partially fulfill legislative requirement for American history.

 1 

ANS 361 

CAPTIALISM, CONSUMPTION, AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN KOREA 

Unique #31125 

Fall 2009 

 

Meets:  Tu 3:30-6:30, PAR 203 

Instructor: Robert Oppenheim 

Office:  WCH 5.134 

Tel.:   471-7279  

Email:   rmo@mail.utexas.edu 

Office Hours: Tu 2-3, Th 10-12 

 

Overview: This is a course about contemporary social and political life in urban South 

Korea—to use a complex and problematic concept, about Korean modernity.  It focuses 

on present conditions and their historical background: on capitalism and development 

from the colonial era (1910-1945) to the present, on the perspectives of workers, white- 

collar employees, and students over time, on the lifestyles of the new middle class, and 

on the struggle for democracy and its aftermath.  We will read ethnographies of 

corporations, factory work, consumption, and activism, as well as accounts of popular 

culture and changing gender systems and roles.  We will also watch several recent films 

and examine other visual materials. 

 

Course Activities: Classes will consist of student presentations, discussion, and films.  

Most classes are divided into A and B segments of an hour each, with a film screening 

making up the third hour.  For the most part, we will begin watching a film in the final 

hour of one class and continue it in the first hour of the next class, at which point we will 

have a presentation and discussion of the film. 

 

Assignments/Grading:  This is a SWC course, so writing makes up a significant portion 

of the class grade.  I will grade writing based upon the presence and quality of an 

argument, your use of sources, and the structure and style of your paper.  Please do try to 

be accurate in grammar and spelling; I encourage you to use the writing center or to have 

a friend read over a paper for errors.  That said, I will not mark off for minor English 

errors unless they get in the way of comprehension or seem to indicate laziness on your 

part.  I am here to teach writing, not grammar, and there is a difference. 

 

Ten (10) 1-page reading reactions  15% (1.5% each) 

One “super-short” (2-3 pp.) paper    5% 

One midterm paper (5-6 pp.)   25% 

One final paper (6-8 pp.)   30% 

Class presentation on readings/film  10% 

Class participation/attendance  15% 

 

Reading reactions: For 10 of the 13 classes beginning with the second week of 

class, you should submit a one page (1-2 paragraph) reaction to some aspect of that 

week’s readings (not films) BY MONDAY EVENING before the class is to be held.  I 

 2 

will ask you to upload your response to the discussion board on EReserve; please note 

that there are folders for each class date.  Everyone should start their own thread, though 

feel free to respond to others.  The other aspect of this assignment is that YOU SHOULD 

GO ONTO ERES AND READ the reactions of others Monday night or so before class.  

We will use these reaction papers as a partial basis for discussion. 

 Part of the point of assigning short reading reaction papers is, indeed, to check 

that you are reading for this class.  However, reading reactions should not be 

summaries, and mere summaries will have points subtracted.  Rather, I want you to 

identify a particular aspect of an author’s argument that you find especially important 

(and explain why), argue with a text, or pose a conceptual (not merely factual) question 

for discussion.  You may focus on all or part of one reading, or the relationship between 

various readings; you do not need to cover all the material for a given class. 

 “Super-short” paper: Towards the beginning of the term, I will assign a very 

short paper that will, however, require you to use sources and offer an argument.  This is 

only worth 5% of your grade and you might be tempted to blow it off.  Don’t.  This is an 

opportunity for you to get feedback on your writing before undertaking assignments that 

will substantially affect your course grade, but that feedback will only be useful to you if 

you write to the best of your ability. 

 Midterm and final papers: Each will be assigned and due on dates indicated 

below.  I will provide questions or problems for you to write on, but there will be 

considerable latitude.  Both readings and films are fair game (for you and for me)! 

 Class presentation: Each student will be called upon to present on class readings 

or a film once during the term .  Each presentation should be a MAXIMUM of 10 minutes 

in length—I WILL time you and I WILL cut you off.  As with reading reactions, 

presentations should not be summaries; rather, they should suggest important issues that a 

set of readings or a film raises and pose questions for class discussion.  Basically, your 

grade on this component of the class will depend on how well and coherently you do this.  

You may find, incidentally, that looking at your classmates’ reading responses on 

Monday night will suggest ideas; please give credit where credit is due. 

 If you present on a reading or set of readings, I have also provided some broad 

framing questions in the syllabus to think about what you might want to say.  You do not 

have to answer these questions, necessarily, and you should feel free to suggest your 

own.  If you present on a film, I hope you will relate the film to other class topics.  Also 

please note that you will be expected to present on a film immediately after we finish 

watching it in class, so it would be good if you had watched it in its entirety beforehand.  

The price of presenting on a film is going to the library to pre-screen it on your own time! 

 We will sign up for presentations on the first class meeting day.  One student per 

presentation slot, please. 

 Class participation:  This is a discussion-based class, and you will be rewarded 

for the quantity and quality of your participation.  Attendance is one factor here as well (I 

will take attendance at the beginning of classes, and bad attendance without proper 

notification will certainly hurt).  At the same time, if you are the vocal type please be 

respectful of other students and give others a chance to speak as well. 

 Graduate students should discuss required assignments with me. 

 

 3 

 I will make use of plus/minus grading.  Generally, I regard averages >=92 

(rounded) as an A, 89-91 as an A-, 87-88 as a B+, 82-86 as a B, and so on at equivalent 

points down the scale. 

 

Academic Dishonesty/Cheating can result in automatic course failure and a report to the 

appropriate Dean.  Your work on exams and papers should be your own. 

 

Cellphones/Computers: Cellphones and other communication devices should be turned 

off or (if you truly need to be in contact) set for silent/vibration mode.  If you need to 

make or receive a call, please leave the room before you begin talking.  Don’t ask, just 

go.  Likewise if you need to use the bathroom.  Don’t text in class. 

 In a discussion based course such as this, you shouldn’t have your laptop open 

during class. 

 

Email:  I usually check email once or more a day, but not always, particularly on 

weekends.  Do not rely on me reading emails you send the night before an exam or paper 

is due. 

 I would prefer receiving a hard copy of major papers.  Basically, I write 

marginalia while grading, and so someone is going to have to print the paper out…may as 

well be you.  (The Department of Asian Studies, like others at UT, is consistently under 

pressure to reduce administrative costs.  Should your stay in Austin inspire the thought of 

taking the issue of funding for higher education up with Texas legislative authorities, I 

will be happy to hold the door for you.)  The hard copy rule is not hard and fast, and if 

there is a real reason why this is difficult for you email the paper instead.  But 1) asking 

first would be nice, and 2) responsibility for technological snafus and incompatibilities 

ultimately rests with you, so check to be sure I’ve gotten it. 

 

Special Needs:  Any student with a documented disability who requires academic 

accommodations should contact Services for Students with Disabilities at 471-6259 

(voice) or 1-866-329-3986 (Video Phone) as soon as possible to request an official letter 

outlining authorized accommodations. 

 

Religious Holy Day Observance:  If an assignment or exam falls due on a day when you 

are observing a religious holy day, I will work with you to find an acceptable alternative 

time to complete the assignment. 

 

Readings/Films:  This class meets only once a week, so it is important to pace yourself 

and start reading early.  For many weeks, we read all or most of a book.  Also remember 

that reading reactions are due the Monday night before a Tuesday class, so that we can 

all have time to get through them and make use of them. 

 I’ve ordered the following books for this course, all available at the Coop.  They 

are also on reserve at PCL.  I recommend buying/acquiring the books (there or 

elsewhere) as soon as you commit to the course, if possible, since the Coop returns books 

to the publisher early in the term and it is best to order additional books early if that 

becomes necessary: 

 

 4 

 Laura C. Nelson, Measured Excess. 

 Nancy Abelmann, The Melodrama of Mobility. 

 Denise Potrzeba Lett, In Pursuit of Status. 

 Namhee Lee, The Making of Minjung. 

 

Other readings (as well as course documents such as weekly lists of key concepts, 

the map quiz review, etc.) will be placed on E-reserve.  These are .pdf copies of articles 

and the like; you can read them on screen or (my recommendation) print them so you can 

mark them up.  E-reserve can be accessed from any computer connected to the UT 

system.  Go to http://reserves.lib.utexas.edu/courseindex.asp and search by the course 

number or my name.  The required password to access materials for this class is CapKor 

(capital letters matter).  This is for the use of students of this class only; please do not 

share the password with others.  The listing should be alphabetical by the author’s last 

name or (when there is no listed author) by the document title. 

If there is enough sentiment for having a packet made up for the course, I will try 

to get that done, I hope by the second week or so.  We’ll discuss pros and cons. 

All films for this class will be placed on reserve at the Audiovisual Library.  If 

you wish to see a film outside of class (whether for review or because you missed the in 

class screening), you can do so there, although films cannot be taken out of the library. 

 

Schedule: 

 

1) 9/1 Introduction 

 

Class introduction and housekeeping 

 

Laurel Kendall, “Introduction,” in Kendall, ed., Under Construction: The Gendering 

of Modernity, Class, and Consumption in the Republic of Korea (Honolulu: U 

Hawaii, 2002), pp. 1-5 only {in class reading}. 

 

2) 9/8 Genealogies of South Korean Capitalism 

 

A) Beginnings: Who Cares, and Why? Presenter: 

 

Karl Marx, “Marx on the History of His Opinions,” (fragment) (originally preface to 

A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy), in Robert C. Tucker, ed., The 

Marx-Engels Reader, p. 5 (only) {the half paragraph from “No social order ever 

perishes...” to the end of the paragraph}. 

 

Carter Eckert, Offspring of Empire: The Koch’ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of 

Korean Capitalism, Preface, Ch. 1, Ch. 8, Conclusion. 

 

What does Eckert mean by capitalism?  What is at stake for Eckert and other 

authors in locating the origins of Korean capitalism?  What understanding(s) of 

history underlie these efforts?  If Korean capitalism has “colonial origins,” what 

 5 

consequence might this have for how it is viewed (or should be viewed) in the 

present? 

 

B) Structures and Conditions of South Korean Development Presenter: 

 

Martin Hart-Landsberg, The Rush to Development, chs. 1-2 {pp. 25-55} 

 

What is H-L writing against?  What was the scope and magnitude of South 

Korean development, and how/why did it occur?  What was its legacy? 

 

Film: “The Aimless Bullet” (???) (1961) 

 

3) 9/15 Modernization as Triumph, Romance, Tragedy, and Myth 

 

“Super-short” paper topic assigned (due 9/25, Friday) 

 

Film: “The Aimless Bullet” (conclusion) Presenter: 

 

A) Developmentalisms and Anti-developmentalisms Presenter: 

 

Park Chung Hee, To Build a Nation (Washington: Acropolis Books, 1971), pp. 18-31 

and 101-134.  {READ QUICKLY—skim and look at pictures} 

 

Walt Rostow, “The Republic of Korea: My Marginal Association with a Miracle,” in 

Concept and Controversy: Sixty Years of Taking Ideas to Market (Austin: UT Press, 

2003), pp. 254-261. 

 

Nils Gilman, Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America 

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2003), short excerpts pp. 42-47, 100-103. 

 

David J. Nemeth, “Blame Walt Rostow: The Sacrifice of South Korea’s Natural 

Villages,” in Tim Tangherlini and Sallie Yea, eds., Sitings: Critical Approaches to 

Geography in Korea (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 2008), pp. 83-97. 

 

What were the promises of “modernization,” “nation-building,” and 

“development” in South Korea and in the broader world?  What were its 

effects?  What were the assumptions of classical “modernization theory” of the 

1960s, and do they hold sway today? 

 

B) One More Ambivalence after the Last: Modernity as Myth Presenter: 

 

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (section), in Tucker, ed., 

The Marx-Engels Reader, pp. 473-483. 

 

 6 

Marshall Berman, All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity 

(New York: Penguin, 1982), “Introduction: Modernity—Yesterday, Today and 

Tomorrow” (pp. 15-36). 

 

James Ferguson, “Decomposing Modernity,” in Global Shadows (Durham: Duke, 

2006), ch. 7 (pp. 176-193). 

 

What is “the experience of modernity?”  Do you feel it?  How do the spiritual 

conditions of “post-development” compare in South Korea versus other areas – 

Ferguson’s Africa, for example? 

 

4) 9/22  Inside the System: A Portrait from a Korean Corporation in the 1980s 

 

A) From the Top Down: Explaining Korean Corporate Leaders Explaining 

Themselves  Presenter: 

 

Roger Janelli with Dawnhee Yim, Making Capitalism: The Social and Cultural 

Construction of a South Korean Conglomerate (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1993), 

Introduction and chs. 1, 3 

 

How do South Korean corporate leaders legitimate themselves?  How do you 

think the image of such leaders compares to that in other situations/locales?  

Why do Janelli and Yim talk about “representations” of Korean culture and 

political economy, and not just culture and political economy? 

 

B) From the Bottom Up: Control, Response, “Resistance”  Presenter: 

 

Janelli with Yim, chs. 4-5, 7. 

 

How is the control of corporate leaders and managers reproduced?  How do 

lower level employees operate within the system?  Is Korean culture on one side 

or the other?  How might we understand Korean culture after this book? 

 

Film: “A Single Spark” (???? ?? ???) (1995) 

 

***9/25 (Friday 5 p.m.) “Super-short” paper due to me in Asian Studies department 

 

5) 9/29 The View from Below: The Making of the Korean Working Class 

 

Film: “A Single Spark” (continued) Presenter: 

 

A) Class Culture in Common and in Conflict Presenter: 

 

E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth: 

Penguin, 1963), Preface (pp. 8-13). 

 

 7 

E.P. Thompson, “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism,” in Customs in 

Common (New York: New Press, 1993; original in Past and Present 38, 1967), pp. 

352-403. 

 

What does Thompson mean to do by saying that the English working class was 

“made”?  How was it?  What is he arguing against?  What is involved in 

“proletarianization”?  What relationship between culture and politics does 

Thompson envision? 

 

B) Korean Workers and Class Formation Presenter: 

 

Hagen Koo, Korean Workers: The Culture and Politics of Class Formation (Ithaca: 

Cornell UP, 2001), chs. 2-3, 6 (pp. 23-68, 126-152).  {All on E-Reserve} 

 

How does Koo use Thompson’s argument?  What was the Korean working class 

“made out of”?  What sorts of experiences were central, and how do these 

compare to other contexts/situations?  How have custom and culture been 

important issues in labor conflict in South Korea? 

 

6) 10/6 Another Angle: The State, Mobilization, and Gender 

 

A) Men and the Mobilizing State Presenter: 

 

Seungsook Moon, Militarized Modernity and Gendered Citizenship in South Korea 

(Durham: Duke, 2005), chs. 1-2. 

 

Sheila Miyoshi Jager, Narratives of Nation Building in Korea (Armonk: M.E. 

Sharpe, 2003), ch. 5. 

 

What does Moon mean by “discipline” (evoking Michel Foucault)?  How were 

men disciplined in South Korea’s developmentalist years?  How did this relate 

to their subjectivity and their “subjectification” (how they became subjects of 

history)?  What role did the military play?  How was/is South Korea a 

militarized society, according to Moon, and how does this compare with other 

places?  

 

B) Women and the Construction of Nation Presenter: 

 

Jager, ch. 3. 

 

Moon, ch. 3. 

 

What was the place of women in the “narrative of nation,” e.g. Yi Kwang-su’s 

work, according to Jager?  What might one imagine this place to be today – in 

Korea or elsewhere, in novels or other media?  What were the mechanisms that 

produced gender relations under state developmentalism? 

 8 

Film: “Green Fish” (?? ???) (1997) 

 

7) 10/13 The Movement Sphere 

 

Film: “Green Fish” (continued) Presenter: 

 

A) Meanings and Conditions of Minjung Presenter: 

 

Namhee Lee, The Making of Minjung (Ithaca: Cornell, 2007), Intro, chs. 1, 3. 

 

What are the minjung?  What assumptions (about history, etc.) underlay this 

category?  What were the roles and effects of Yusin, Gwangju/Kwangju, and 

anti-Americanism? 

 

B) The Counterpublic and the Politics of Alliance Presenter: 

 

Namhee Lee, chs. 4, 6-7. 

 

Consider aspects of the culture and practice of the undonggwôn – can you 

compare anything?  What were the conditions and difficulties of student 

attempts to ally with labor?  What does Lee mean by the relation between 

Gramscian organicism and Leninist vanguardism?  Does this tension exist 

anywhere else? 

 

Midterm paper assigned (due 10/30 Friday) 

 

8) 10/20 The 1990s and “New New Social Movements” 

 

A) Citizens to the Fore: The Post-1987 Shift Presenter: 

 

Sunhyuk Kim, “Civil Society in South Korea: From Grand Democracy Movements 

to Petty Interest Groups?” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies 15(2): 81-97. 

 

Nancy Abelmann, Echoes of the Past, Epics of Dissent (Berkeley: U California 

Press, 1996), ch. 9 {pp. 226-248}. 

 

Robert Oppenheim, Kyôngju Things (Ann Arbor: U Michigan Press, 2008), ch. 7. 

 

What shifts to these authors identify?  What is the relationship between simin 

and minjung movements in discourse, life histories, etc.?  What other 

dimensions might we talk about?  How do different authors/groups regard these 

developments of the 1990s? 

 

B) An Exercise: Issues, Networks, and the Self-Presentation of Korean Social 

Movement Organizations Presenter: 

 

 9 

Spend some time reading material linked on the following websites (not just the front 

page): 

 

For the Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice (??????????): 

 

http://www.ccej.or.kr/english/ or http://www.ccej.or.kr/ (Korean) 

 

For the Korean Federation of Environmental Movements (??????): 

 

http://english.kfem.or.kr/ or http://www.kfem.or.kr/ (Korean) 

 

How do these organizations organize?  What issues do they find important?  

How do they construct their relation to other past or present movements?  To 

society?  

 

Film: “Beat” (??) (1997) 

 

9) 10/27 Of Salarymen and Apartment Towers: South Korea’s New Middle Class 

 

Film: “Beat” (continued) Presenter: 

 

A) Making Money, Making Families Presenter: 

 

Denise Potrzeba Lett, In Pursuit of Status: The Making of South Korea’s “New” 

Middle Class (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 1998), Intro and Chs. 1- 

3 {pp. 1-96}. 

 

What is “new” about the new middle class, and what is not?  What relationship 

does Lett see between Confucianism and capitalism, and how is the middle class 

“between”?  What are the advantages and assumptions of a focus on status? 

 

B) Livin’, Learnin’, Lovin’ Presenter:  

 

Lett, chs. 4-6 and Conclusion {pp. 97-228}. 

 

To what extent can there be said to be a convergence of middle-class lifestyles 

around the world?  What are significant differences in life or motivation?  Do 

you agree (last page) that the middle class has “contributed”? 

 

***Midterm paper due 10/30 Friday*** 

 

10) 11/3 Gender, Nationalism, and the Politics of Consumption 

 

A) Space, Policy, and Strategies of Affluence Presenter: 

 

 10 

Laura C. Nelson, Measured Excess: Status, Gender, and Consumer Nationalism in 

South Korea (New York: Columbia, 2000), Preface and Chs. 1-3. 

 

Consider the Korean real estate market comparatively: how has the housing 

system contributed to socioeconomic differentiation?  What role does the state 

play in consumption, in South Korea and elsewhere?  Why does Nelson choose a 

strategy of offering “vignettes” and what does it do for her? 

 

B) Consumption, National Time, Domestic Others Presenter: 

 

Nelson, chs. 3-6. 

 

How might we best understand consumer nationalism in Korea, according to 

Nelson?  Consider some examples of the temporality of consumption, and the 

paradoxes of national time.  How do the (broken) promises of the South Korean 

national narrative that Nelson discusses compare to other such narratives? 

 

Film: “Attack the Gas Station” (??? ?? ??) (1999) 

 

11) 11/10 The Asian Financial Crisis 

 

****Final paper assigned (due Friday of the last week of class, 12/4)**** 

 

Film: “Attack the Gas Station” (cont.) Presenter: 

 

A) Political Economy Presenter: 

 

T.J. Pempel, “Introduction,” in Pempel, ed., The Politics of the Asian Economic 

Crisis (Ithaca: Cornell, 1999), pp. 1-14. 

 

Bruce Cumings, “The Asian Crisis, Democracy, and the End of ‘Late’ 

Development,” in Pempel, pp. 17-44. 

 

Meredith Woo-Cumings, “The State, Democracy, and the Reform of the Corporate 

Sector in Korea,” in Pempel, pp. 116-142. 

 

What were the causes and consequences of the crisis?  What/who is at fault?  

What does the political perspective the authors offer bring to the table? 

 

B) Neoliberalism and social effects Presenter: 

 

Jesook Song, "Family Breakdown and Invisible Homeless Women," positions 14(1): 

37-65. 

 

Seung-Kyung Kim and John Finch, “Living with Rhetoric, Living against Rhetoric: 

Korean Families and the IMF Economic Crisis,” Korean Studies 26: 120-39. 

 11 

 

What sorts of effects did the Asian Financial (“IMF”) crisis have on Korean 

families?  How was the IMF understood in public discourse, and how did this 

discourse interact with its practical realities?  What is “neoliberalism,” and 

what sort of shifts in the relations of individuals and society does it gloss? 

 

12) 11/17 Women, Talk, and Class 

 

A) Keywords of Social Life after Development Presenter: 

 

Nancy Abelmann, The Melodrama of Mobility (Honolulu: Hawaii, 2003), Preface 

and chs. 1-3. 

 

Why melodrama?  What would some comparable keywords be? 

 

B) Masculinities, etc. Presenter: 

 

Abelmann, chs. 6-7, 9. 

 

How/why does Abelmann bring film into the discussion?  How does her look at 

masculinity compare to others? 

 

Film: “Take Care of my Cat” (???? ???) (2001) 

 

13) 11/24 Globalization, Multiculturalism, New Identities 

 

Film: “Take Care of my Cat” (cont.) Presenter:  

 

A) Meanings of Globalization, and Gay Identities  Presenter:  

 

Gi-Wook Shin, Ethnic Nationalism in Korea (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 

2006), ch. 11. 

 

Younghan Cho, “Unfolding Sporting Nationalism in South Korean Media 

Representations of the 1968, 1984, and 2000 Olympics,” Media, Culture and Society 

31(3): 347-364. 

 

John (Song Pae) Cho, “The Wedding Banquet Revisited: ‘Contract Marriages’ 

Between Korean Gays and Lesbians,” Anthropological Quarterly 82(2): 401-422. 

 

What have been some of the differing assumptions and agendas of 

“globalization” in Korea?  How has it played out in different contexts?  What 

are the local politics and cultures of gay and lesbian identities? 

 

B) Multicultural Korea(?) Presenter: 

 

 12 

Cho Uhn, “Towards a Multicultural Society?” Korea Journal 47(4). 

 

Han Kyung-Koo, “The Archaeology of the Ethnically Homogeneous Nation-State 

and Multiculturalism in Korea,” ibid 

 

Han Geon-Soo, “Multicultural Korea: Celebration or Challenge of Multiethnic Shift 

in Contemporary Korea?” ibid 

 

Eun Mee Kim and Jean S. Kang, “Seoul as a Global City with Ethnic Villages.” ibid 

 

Is South Korea becoming “multicultural”?  Is this inevitable?  What might this 

mean, and how might it compare to other “local multiculturalisms”? 

 

14) 12/1 Consumption, Meaning, and (Neo-) “Tradition” Presenter: 

 

Hyangjin Lee, “Chunhyang: Marketing an Old Tradition in New Korean Cinema,” in 

Shin and Stringer, pp. 63-78. 

 

Sangmee Bak, “McDonald’s in Seoul: Food Choices, Identity, and Nationalism,” in 

James L. Watson, ed., Golden Arches East: McDonald’s in East Asia (Stanford: 

Stanford UP), pp. 136-160. 

 

Rebecca Ruhlen, “Korean Alterations: Nationalism, Social Consciousness, and 

‘Traditional’ Clothing,” in Re-Orienting Fashion (London: Berg, 2003), pp. 117-138. 

 

How can we best understand moral discourses on consumption in Korea?  What 

is being consumed in each case?  How do objects/goods, places, and practices 

interrelate? 

 

Film: “The Way Home” (???) (2002) No Presentation 

 

***Final Paper due 12/4, Friday (5 pm), in my office in Asian Studies*** 

 

There is no separate final exam for this class.