[KS] Koreanists

[Clark, Donald]

To the list:
     Peter Schroepfer, one of the handful of American-born Koreanists I know
who's really able to be part of the academic discourse in Korea once
tactfully pointed out to me the difference between "Han'gukhak" and what he
referred to as "Han'guk sogaehak."  I think Chinoh Chu's message says
something about the distinction.  I also appreciate the fact that he pointed
to ways to narrow the difference.  Like many list members I'm familiar with
the genre of literature that lists more or less the same collaborators and
repeats the same stories and I'd welcome a less vengeful, more nuanced
discussion of what it means to have lived under Japanese rule, facing the
choices that were available then.  
     As for the authenticity of Koreanists of the Korean-born, foreign-born,
Korean-but-foreignized, or foreign-but-Koreanized, this too is a fascinating
discussion.  Like Horace Underwood, I had grandparents and parents who were
working in Korea under the Minami regime and had a close-range view of the
life-or-death dilemmas that faced Korean Christians at the time--as well as
the recriminations that followed Liberation when it had to be sorted out.
They had their own authentic experience of Korea at the time, but it was of
course removed from (and rather safer than) the experience of Koreans
themselves.  They came away from it humbled, less inclined to make judgments
about the motives of individuals who "collaborated" versus the survivors who
"stood firm," and they taught me that in the real world such questions are
full of shadings and nuances.
     A propos of this experience for Koreans under Japanese rule, Koen
DeCeuster has organized a panel for the Boston AAS meeting.  It is scheduled
for Saturday afternoon at 2:45 and is entitled "Aspects of Religious Social
Thought in Colonial Korea."    

Don Clark
  


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