[KS] Re: Our Biases

[Linda Goddard]

Dear Jacqueline Pak,

I wanted to participate in the "Collaboration" discussion, often having 
a difficult time remaining silent because it's an area for which I have 
a great deal of concern, but I didn't for two reasons: I don't YET have 
enough expertise to participate, and I didn't have time to respond 
thoughtfully and thoroughly then because I was preparing to go to San 
Francisco for a doctoral class.

What I've wanted to say to you, though, is how very much I enjoyed all 
the ways you engaged that discussion and also the ways you maintained a 
thoughtful and sensitive intellectual approach to a difficult, complex 
subject. I sensed that you were not trying to set up an adversary 
discussion, and when it seemed that some who took part in it were, you 
addressed those issues well. You handled that discussion well in the 
face of some not so thoughtful and sensitive remarks.

I'd like to stay in touch with you. I'm doing my doctoral studies on 
Cross Cultural Literary Studies. I have many areas of interest 
concerning Korean literature. Here are two: the poetry of contemporary 
Korean women as it reflects "Han" and the emigration experiences of 
Korean women who emigrated to the U.S. during the late 1800's and early 
1900's -- any poetry, as well as nonfiction (journals) that might have 
grown out of those emigration experiences. I live in Taejon, South Korea 
(until June), so you can contact me via email. 

I look forward to hearing about your work, Jacqueline.
Linda Goddard

>>Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 11:31:44 -0500
>
>
>Dear List,
>
>I agree that we should allow ourselves to be self-critical of our own
>scholarship in Korean Studies in the past for the progress and 
development
>of better future.  Including my own numerous shortcomings and 
weaknesses as
>a human being and junior revisionist scholar, I may be so bold enough 
to
>venture into this territory since I appear to be inadvertently 
responsible
>for this controversy from the start. 
>
>It may be difficult and possibly unfair to generalize about "white
>American", or "white male American", Koreanists who came of age in the
>sixties, just as about "Korean" or "Korean-American" scholars.  Korean
>Studies as we know today would not exist without the rich contributions 
of
>so many anti-Viet Nam war protestors who went to Korea as peace corps
>volunteers and learned about Korea with affection and concern for the
>country and returned to America and developed this thriving field of
>knowledge and discipline. And they have not only pursued topics in 
history
>but certainly other areas as well with a sense of vigor and commitment.
>
>Yet, Gene raises a valid and worthwhile point to ponder, and 
increasingly,
>I suspect that we have to squarely face this issue in Korean Studies. 
My
>own call for new paradigmatic possibilities was, in essence, addressing
>this very problematique that we simply cannot avoid or escape, i.e., to
>assess and critique the limitations and problems of the existing
>historiography in the process of a paradigmatic shift toward new and 
better
>understanding.  How can this process ever be stilled?
>
>From the outset, when I spoke of the need to be careful about the issue 
of
>collaboration, I was referring to this problematique.  Certainly, there
>have been problems with an earlier representation of colonial history 
and
>collaboration by this generation of historians.  
>
>To discuss an example I know, An Ch'angho had been represented and
>understood as a gradualist and pacifist. From my scrutiny, it turns out
>that An promoted military action all his life in the Far East.  Both Yi
>Kwangsu and An Ch'angho had been considered together as "cultural
>nationalists", or that Yi's Minjok kaejoron influenced by An Ch'angho 
was
>believed to have showed their collective willingness to only work 
within
>the colonial framework as "passive collaborationists."  Yet, my 
research
>shows that if there ever was 'ilp'yon tansim' patriot and revolutionary
>(who by the way composed a song called Tansimga), this was An Ch'angho 
who
>spent most of his activist life as an exile anyway. Tangled with the
>celebrated collaboration case of Yi Kwangsu, a leader of the Korean
>anticolonial movement and the veritable founding father of the republic
>came to be terribly misunderstood!  
>
>One does not need to exaggerate the implications of such 
misunderstanding
>or misjudgement on modern Korean history of the twentieth century. How 
can
>this happen?  We need to inquire: What were the political dynamics and
>milieu of historiographical writing at work when such occurred?  In 
what
>ways were these famous historical figures used or appropriated as a
>historical referential and imaginary after the Kwangju massacre?  
>
>Is it not then reasonable to urge for more sensitivity and care about 
the
>colonial history or collaboration?  Is Koreans' authentic voice of
>nationalist struggle then not significant and meaningful to discern the
>genuine historical facts of Korean nationalist movement and leadership? 
>How about other works? And their ideological underpinnings and biases?
>
>Koen has already problematized the issue of an overly ideologized and
>politicized historiography which by its nature cannot be considered
>empirically "objective" or sound, and Gene has discussed a strong sense 
of
>social activism which underscored such works.  Well intended moral 
idealism
>was definitely part of the underlying impulse but its overt ideological
>drive was also its problem and excess which we now need to pay close
>attention and explore.
>
>
>Jacqueline Pak (Christian, 1.5 and fourth-generation Korean American 
woman
>revisionist academic)
>
> 
>
> 

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