[KS] can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies?

michael robinson mrobinso at indiana.edu
Tue Sep 30 09:22:06 EDT 2003


Re: [KS] can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian StuDEar List: 

I concurr with Horace.  My experience is that the majority of people coming up in Korean studies are not white males of Anglo-Euro ancestry or whatever.  Nor is there an overwhelming dominance of such in the field at large now a days.  In a few years, then, the field will swing the other way and its demographic spread will remain locked for the long period of time in which it takes any field to turn over.  Nor is it possible to easily impute race as the factor in tenure successes or non-success given the covert nature of many decisions and the fact that departments lapse into speaking in tongues at tenure meetings.   I know of two cases this year in Asian Studies where the Anglo-Euro-white or whatever candidate was turned back with questions of language competence.  Yet, again, that is only two and not a survey of a large field.

Mike Robinson
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Horace H. Underwood 
  To: Korean Studies Discussion List 
  Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 2:13 AM
  Subject: RE: [KS] can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies?


  Perhaps the statement below is true in Europe - I don't know.  For the past six years in Fulbright, however, the American graduate students and tenured scholars of Korean studies who have received Fulbright grants to do research in Korea have largely been Korean American.

  Someone would have to do a survey of white male American professors married to Korean women to find their motivations, but in my own case I would not readily accept the idea that the motivation of my wife and myself in adopting our Korean daughters was to secure access to Korean language and culture.

  Horace H. Underwood

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws [mailto:Koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws]On Behalf Of Tobias Hübinette
    Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 2:55 PM
    To: Korean Studies Discussion List
    Subject: Re: [KS] can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies?


    Korean studies is still a white reservation

    The minuscule academic field of Korean studies encompassing less than 40 Western university departments outside North and South Korea and made up of a mixture of classical Orientalism and Cold War area studies is not only heavily male-dominated, but also a very white scene even if most undergraduate students are second generation immigrant or adopted Koreans. As tenures and professorships continue to be passed on to white males of whom the absolute majority are either married to a Korean woman or has adopted a Korean child to secure a comfortable access to Korean language and culture, ethnic Koreans are confined to the racialized roles of native informants and speakers.


-- 


    Tobias Hübinette a.k.a. Lee Sam-dol

    Ph.D. candidate in Korean Studies
    Department of Oriental Languages
    Stockholm University
    SE-106 91 Stockholm
    Sweden

    Tel: 46-8-16 15 88
    Fax: 46-8-15 54 64
    E-mail: tobias at orient.su.se

    Presentations:
    Department of Oriental languages: www.orient.su.se/koreanskapersonal.html
    Info Portal Asia: www.sub.su.se:591/sidor/forskning/koreaforsk/tobias/
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