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Dear colleagues,<br>
<br>
if what Ann Lee writes about the atmosphere of the "WASP
domination" in our field in the USA is true (as I have never been
over there, it is hard for me to assess the situation on my own), that I
cannot help concluding that, perhaps, old Soviet Union wasn't the worst
of all possible worlds. Several prominent ethnic Korean scholars won
recognition in their respective special fields (M.N.Pak - ancient
history, G.F.Kim - North Korean politics, Lim Su - folk sayings, etc.) as
"dominant authorities", so to say, and I really don't remember
any talks about "tribe wars" along ethnic lines among
their students, so ethnically mixed as they were. I don't think
anybody really questioned - or would ever question - the loyalty of the
ethnic Korean "patriarchs" of Soviet/Russian Korean Studies to
Soviet/Russian culture or research traditions. Perhaps - I just guess -
it was old intelligentsia tradition of fighting against official
antisemitism/"patriotic" chauvinism in Tzarist Russia, in
combination with Tzarist/Soviet tradition of absorbing ethnically
heterogeneous local elites, that precluded any ethnic divisions in the
Korean Studies field? Anyway, I can only hope that the immunity to
racialist taxonomies will survive in Russia, despite all the efforts to
the contrary on the part of its today's rulers...<br>
<br>
Vladimir Tikhonov <br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
At 15:28 25.09.2003 -0700, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite><font face="arial" size=2>Dear
list,</font><br>
<br>
<font face="arial" size=2>I have failed in my bid to be a cultural
comprador.</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2>Collecting my unemployment checks, I have time
to read what I want to read.</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2>I can't help asking myself whether or not Asian
Americans can have a voice in Asian Studies.</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2>Orientalists remind us that only a native's
"access" to Asian culture could possibly give an Asian any use
value in the field. This results in pitting Asian Americans (issei,
nisei, 1.5 generations, and in betweens) against each other -- a divisive
strategy that succeeds because of the economics of Necessity, in which
Asian Americans are only too willing to sell each other out in order to
survive. It is a strategy that pre-empts any possible alliances
that Asian Americans might try to form, alliances that dominant whites
find threatening.</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2>I remember a male WASP professor at Harvard
(now at a different school) asking department majors to introduce
ourselves and our reasons for majoring in East Asian Studies. One
Asian student, recently immigrated, said he wanted to study his
culture. I said I had a somewhat academic interest in Asia, rather
than studying it as "my culture," since I was born in N.Y.C.
and grew up here.</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2>The WASP male professor, perhaps sensing a
smugness in my attitude, immediately said, "But isn't that what it
is? _Your_ culture?" It was a harsh rebuke of my
confidence in my American identity. My skin color meant, to him,
that I would never be accepted as an American.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="arial" size=2>Ann Lee</font><br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Vladimir Tikhonov,<br>
Department of East European and Oriental Studies,<br>
Faculty of Arts,<br>
University of Oslo,<br>
P.b. 1030, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.<br>
Fax: 47-22854140; Tel: 47-22857118<br>
Personal web page:
<a href="http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.html</a><br>
Electronic classrooms: East Asian/Korean Society and Politics:<br>
<a href="http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.</a><a href="http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html" eudora="autourl">html<br>
</a>
East Asian/Korean Religion and Philosophy:<br>
<a href="http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html" eudora="autourl">http://</a>www.geocities.com<a href="http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html" eudora="autourl">/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html</a><br>
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