[KS] AAS-Invitation

C. Sarah Soh soh at sfsu.edu
Fri Mar 24 21:12:28 EST 2006


Hi, I'll be happy to attend the meeting.  Thanks.
C. Sarah Soh

At 10:14 PM 3/22/2006, you wrote:
>Late last year the International Society for Korean Studies (ISKS) sent 
>you an invitation to attend a planning meeting to organize the North 
>American Branch of this society.
>The orgnizational meeting will be held at the Marriott Hotel in San 
>Francisco in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Association for 
>Asian Studies. To avoid a meeting conflict with the Association of 
>Scholars Concerned about Korea (ASCK), we have pushed our organizational 
>meeting back to 7:45 PM on the 8th of April. We will be meeting as listed 
>in the AAS program in the Sierra Suite on the 5th floor.
>To repeat the organizational meeting of the ISKS, North American Branch 
>will start at 7:45 PM on April 8 in the Sierra Suite.
>In order for us to prepare ample materials, please let me know at 
>Shultz at Hawaii.edu  by March 31 if you will be able to attend this planning 
>meeting.
>
>For your information I have posted below the initial invitation we 
>distributed last fall. For those of you who have already responded to the 
>first invitation, it is not necessary to repond again.
>
>An Invitation
>The International Society for Korean Studies (ISKS) was formed in Osaka, 
>Japan in 1990 and over the last fifteen years it has been quietly building 
>a network of scholars in Korean studies. In addition to its headquarters 
>in Osaka, ISKS has branch offices in Seoul, Pyongyang, Beijing, Osaka, and 
>Europe (London).  Although there was once a North American branch, it has 
>become dormant for sometime now. This has led ISKS to start afresh by 
>reorganizing the North American branch to meet the needs of the ISKS 
>members in the U.S. and Canada. As the current president of ISKS, I am 
>calling for an organizational meeting to be held in San Francisco in 
>conjunction with the AAS Annual Meeting in April 2006. We have scheduled 
>an organizational meeting for Saturday evening, April 8th at 7:45 PM. And 
>I strongly urge those of you who are interested in joining this Society to 
>make every effort to attend this initial meeting. If you are interested 
>but unable to attend the San Francisco meeting
>, please contact me at Shultz at hawaii.edu Also if you plan to attend this 
>meeting, please let me know.
>Given that there are already a number of associations focused on Korean 
>studies, one might ask why yet another? ISKS has carved out an important 
>niche that warrants recognition.  ISKS is unique among Korean studies 
>organizations in that it is truly international, in fact, global. Our 
>members come from Korea (both South and North), China, Japan, Europe, and 
>North America and with such a broad base of membership, our conferences 
>have been held in geographically diverse areas, for example, Osaka, 
>Beijing, Honolulu, and Shenyang, China. Since its founding, ISKS has 
>stressed enhancing contacts between North and South Korea and has 
>succeeded in providing a venue for dialogue and understanding between 
>scholars of North and South Korea. Most recently in September 2005, 
>thirty-four scholars from Pyongyang led by the President of the DPRK 
>Academy of Social Sciences joined over ninety scholars from South Korea 
>and abroad to participate in the seventh international conference of ISKS. I
>SKS held a formal three-day program in Shenyang as well as a two-day tour 
>of ancient Koguryo historical sites. Current plans call for the next 
>international conference to be held in Pyongyang in the summer of 2007.
>         We feel that it is important for North American scholars to have 
> an opportunity to participate in these significant gatherings, and that 
> by forming a new, viable North American branch we can begin to assure 
> greater North American participation. If you have any questions or wish 
> further information, please contact us. Thank you.
>                                                 Edward J. Shultz, 
> president

C. Sarah Soh, Ph.D.
Department of Anthropology
San Francisco State University






More information about the Koreanstudies mailing list