[KS] Workshop, Bochum university

[Joerg Plassen]

WORKSHOP
SPRACHE UND KULTUR KOREAS, RUHR-UNIVERSITAET BOCHUM

With the generous support of Korea Foundation, the Korean Studies
Institute at Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum will host a workshop on:

"The politics of cultural status: Ancient and modern reflections on
Korea`s role in East Asia"

Date: 11.10.2002 - 13.10.2002
Place: Internationaler Pavillion EuroEck, Spechtsweg 20, Bochum, Germany

Theme:
Due to geographical and historical circumstances, polities on the Korean
peninsula rarely had the chance to perceive themselves as the center of
the world. For more than two thousand years, these polities had to
arrange themselves with alternating Chinese, Mongol, Tungusic dominance.
   After WW II, the country was divided, both materially and mentally,
between two competing and conflicting political world orders, and today
North Korea completely isolates itself by upholding the defunct world
order it once chose to belong to, while in the South issues of
globalization are a hotly and broadly debated topic.
It is self-evident that in a nation as embattled and enclosed as Korea,
self-positioning within the surrounding world played and continues to
play a central role in forming and adjusting group identities. These
notions of shared identity within the dominant social groups again shape
Korean political actions in international contexts as well as in inner
affairs.
At various points in Korean history, shifting political constellations
necessitated redefinitions of the perceived world orders (and, arguably,
of the concept of "world order"). However, as any ordering of the world
makes use of hierarchies of ideas and values as well as power
hierarchies, these redefinitions were consistently founded on cultural
arguments, and renewed self-positioning within changing international
surroundings always entailed cultural adjustments meant to ensure a
higher position within the cultural cum political hierarchy of the
reigning/perceived symbolical order - "cultural status". The workshop
sets out to explore to what degree the notion of a quest of status might
be helpful in understanding the intricate interrelationship between
culture and politics in the context of Korean history.

Program:

Friday, Oct. 11

15.00
Marion Eggert (Bochum University): Welcome address
Martina Deuchler (SOAS London): Opening remarks

15.30-17.30
Joerg Plassen, Yu Myoung In (Bochum University)
<The centres and the periphery: "Korea`s" cultural status viewed from
Buddhist sources until the Kory^o period>

Remco Breuker (Leiden University)
<Borrowed Status: Sinophilia as Policy in 12th century Kory^o>

coffee break

18.00-19.00
Rob Provine (University of Maryland)
<Neo-Confucianism in Early Chos^on-Dynasty Court Music>

Saturday, Oct 12

10.00-12.00
JaHyun Kim-Haboush (Columbia University)
<Historicizing the Discourse of Cultural Identity in
Seventeenth-Century Korea: Problems of Perspective and Terminology>

Song Young-bae (Seoul National University)
<Impacts of Western Learning on orthodox Sinocentrism and the Search for
a New Horizon of Self-Identity in 18th Century Korea. The case of Hong
Tae-yong and Ch^ong Yak-yong.>

lunch break

14.00-16.00
Erling von Mende (Freie Universitaet Berlin)
<What did and could Ming China and the Manjus expect from Korea in the
early 17th century?>

Gerhard Pfulb (Bochum University)
<Questions of status and superiority claims in Korean-Japanese
relationships between the late 16th and the early 20th century>

coffee break

16.30-18.30

Vladimir Tikhonov (Oslo University)
<World is a Battlefield: Social Darwinism as the New World Model of
Korean Intelligentsia of the 1900s>

Boudewijn Walraven (Leiden University)
<Iksan as the centre of the world: the global vision of the Pulb^op
y^on'guhoe>

Sunday, Oct. 13

9.00-11.00
Koen de Ceuster (Leiden University)
<Through the Master's Eye. Colonized Mind and Historical Consciousness
in the case of Yun Ch'iho (1865-1945)>

Stanca Scholz-Cionca (Trier University)
<Korea`s place in Japan`s world: some observations on the present
situation>

coffee break

11.15-12.15
Mike Robinson (Indiana University)
<Filial Son, Model Colony, Cold War Bastion, and Miracle Economy:
Imposed Labels and Korea's National Becoming>

12.15-13.00
Concluding discussion


Accomodations & Travel:
Unfortunately, we will not be able to reimburse participants` expenses
except those of invited speakers. However, we will try to provide
assistance in finding accommodations etc.

Participation:
As the number of participants is limited, we kindly ask interested
colleagues to register as soon as possible by email.
A limited number of  students (i.e. graduates, PhD candidates) will be
admitted for passive participation. However, a short letter of
recommendation (email feasible) by their supervisor is requested.

Contact/Further Information:
joerg.plassen at ruhr-uni-bochum.de