Fall 2003

GOV 360N • Two Koreas and the US - W

Course Description

Course number may be repeated for credit when topics vary. Drawing on history, anthropology, and political science, this seminar will focus on the relationship between North and South Korea, and between the Koreas and the United States, since 1945. This is thus also a course in thinking about, and across, borders. Can we understand North Korea? What social, cultural, and political effects does Korean division have? How have important events like the Korean War been seen by different groups? How has the Korean situation had an effect within postwar histories of the Cold War, American global power, and nuclear arms?

Grading Policy

40% of the grade is based on two short (4-5 pages each) papers responding to readings. 40% on a longer (12-15 pages) final paper on a pre-approved topic. 10% on a class presentation on class readings. 10% on general class participation.

Texts

Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War (vol. 1). Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis, and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War. Jung-en Woo, Race to the Swift. Choong Soon Kim, Faithful Endurance: An Ethnography of Korean Family Dispersal. Paik Nak-chung, "South Korea: Unification and the Democratic Challenge." Roy Richard Grinker, Korea and Its Futures: Unification and the Unfinished War. Charles N. Armstrong, The North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950. Linda Lewis, Laying Claim to the Memory of May. Katherine H.S. Moon, Sex Among Allies. Paul Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age.

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