[KS] AAS Korea panels announcements

Stephen Epstein Stephen.Epstein at vuw.ac.nz
Sun Apr 2 23:15:11 EDT 2006


And just to throw in my own 20 won: my perception is also that the issues being raised tell us much more about the AAS and its membership than Korean Studies writ large. Looking at the books I get notice of for Korean Studies Review, I certainly still see a very strong interest in political economy and security issues (in terms of sheer numbers, I'd suggest that such books predominate, in fact).

And speaking of KSR, one of these days I will get to a new list of books received...but perhaps I can also take this opportunity to remind our dilatory reviewers, many of whom have contributed to the KS list in the last month or so, that part of our dormancy of late has been because we're waiting for several reviews to come in.....

Cheers, Stephen

>Dave raises an interesting question but I wonder if the number of advanced students in the social sciences is as thin as it might appear at first glance. For example, at the University of Hawai'i we have a number of excellent grad students in political science and economics and related areas who for reasons stated earlier prefer to present in discipline specific fields. And if one looks at the recent phds in these same fields who have returned to work in Korea, you will also find many highly qualified individuals fluent in both Korean and English producing excellent scholarship.
>Ned Shultz
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: David.C.Kang at Dartmouth.EDU (David C. Kang)
>Date: Saturday, April 1, 2006 9:06 pm
>Subject: Re: [KS] AAS Korea panels announcements
>To: Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
>
>
>
>Just two clarifications to the post I made earlier: first, I was writing about
>the field of Korean Studies in general, not just about AAS panels.
>
>Second and more importantly, I don't see this at all in terms of humanities
>versus social science. I'm delighted there's such vibrance in the history and
>literature and "cultural" fields. My point was different: taken on its own
>terms, the study of Korean political science and economics is much more thin
>than I had thought. Regardless of one's own scholarly interests, I can't imagine
>that this is a good trend. That is, issues of North Korea, regional integration,
>economic and political development, Japan-China-Korea relations, etc., are of
>substantive importance, and of great interest to students. That we have so few
>graduate students studying in these areas is somewhat worrisome to me, and I'm
>not sure why this is the case.
>
>
>Dave





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