[KS] Re: Facing/Avoidng One's Own Heritage

[Eugene Y. Park]

Dear Mike:

Thanks for your comments.  I could not agree more.  Although we all seek to
"question the position of the scholar within his work," or at least be
aware that "he carries to the table a set of opinions and biases," I don't
think us Koreanists are trying hard enough.  Perhaps we could chat more
about this at the AAS after our Fri. panels (mine's in the afternoon).
Look forward to meeting you.

Best,
Gene Park (a Philhellene Korean American male expat teaching at Anglophone
school in Francophone Canada)

>Dear Eugene:
>
>You are correct, the realities of race discourse (and ethnic, national,
>gender and sexual preference, and on and on are rather serious.  This is
>especially the case of people in public teaching jobs.  Ours is a serious
>business made even more serious (at times absurdly so) by racial and
>identity representation politics.  To say people who came of age in the
>sixties might share and experience or certain political/cultural
>orientation is just about as meaningless as reifying Koreans.  Thus the
>trap of identity politics leading to new and more meaningless
>representations of other reifications.  The only difference is the
>politics and direction of the Othering I suppose.  The great contribution
>of post-structuralist writing has been, I suppose, to question the
>position of the scholar
>within his work.  Anyone breathing and still doing research today
>understands this.  Even if they don't use the langauge of "position" they
>have a position and any well-trained historian is aware that he carries to
>the table a set of opinions and biases whether or not he believes in a
>definition of "historical truth".  There are no historical truths other
>than those that survive endless and sustained criticism.  Too bad things
>can't be more lighthearted, but we are often writing and thinking about
>stuff that is pretty damn serious.
>
>Mike Robinson,(Anglo Midwestern Urban middle class Male American Area
>Studies Professor Father Son Brother and Coffee addict)

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Eugene Y. Park
Assistant Professor
Department of East Asian Studies
McGill University
3434 McTavish Street
Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 1X9

Phone:	(514) 398-6742, ext. 0209; (514) 281-9764
Fax:	(514) 398-1882
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