[KS] Vulnerabilities of Korean Studies

[michael robinson]

Dear List: 

The AAS also has a rough breakout of all scholars in their membership roles
who list Korea as an area of primary interest.  This group is made up of all
AAS members, whether employed in the academy  or in other jobs or
independent scholars.  

There are many wrinkles to the "heritage" issue.  At some schools (like
Indiana) the Korean surnamed students who are in the majority are actually
foreign students.  I have as well a small cluster of adoptees from Korea
that are not identifiable as Korean through their surname.  Frankly, the
foreign student (undergraduates) here are not interested in their
heritage.....they come hoping they might have a leg up in a class about
Korea or East Asia.  It turns out they are usually poorly equipped to
survive a course that is evaluated in written exams and papers.  Those who
might be classified as Korean-American are also quite different from their
brethren who live in larger urban areas that have large populations of
Korean Americans.  Their identification as Korean-Americans is less
politicized, but they are grateful for finding courses on Korea or Asian
America.  Moreover, our language courses on Korea are not sustained by
"heritage" learners.....our sister institution University of Illinois has an
enormous program that is populated with "heritage" learners from
Chicago....this in a neighboring state.  Ironically, our department and
college (with a much smaller program) uses tenured faculty to coordinate all
three East Asian languages.  Nevertheless, to run drill sections and offer
more than two years we must use lecturers and thus run into the problems
endemic to part-time and non-tenure track employment.  We hope to move to a
model that adds full-time, on renewable contracts, lecturers.....but this is
where push comes to shove with funding. Universities with large Korean
language programs have to recognize the issues that for stability tenure
track coordinators are necessary, but here we run into the issue of what
departments are willing to allocate scare hires or future hires to what they
erroneously see is essentially a "language position."  Universities DO look
at various groups as "markets" and constituencies from which tuition dollars
are derived.  As long as they are allowed to do this then there is no
decision on what is important programmatically.  When the constituency
reduces in size (enrollments go down) then they move to cover the next
pressure point or look for tuition revenue from which to support the next
group with temporary help.  This is part of the peril of arguing for
"coverage" of a culture from the basis of numbers of undergraduates.  That
is important, but the larger issue of permanent scholarly focus of the
departments involve needs to be fought for....that East Asia is a region and
must be studied as such.  In the changing climate of scholarly
fashion.....with interdisciplinary studies, global, and broad regional
interest....this is the issue to push simultaneous to the "heritage"
coverage problem.  

To conclude I need to express a mea culpa to those struggling with the
problems at Berkeley.  In an earlier posting I was very dismissive of
Berkeley's efforts over the years to move to establish Korea as an important
component of their East Asia Program.  My original critique of the program
and their non-action even with the resources to act has been stands in my
mind as unsupportable.  I was not dismissing the plight of the language
program nor was I in anyway unsympathetic with the victims of Berkeley's
decision to try to save money by cutting important language instruction.  I
fully support your effort to fight this insanity.  

Mike R.

Mike R.

-----Original Message-----
From: koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws
[mailto:koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws] On Behalf Of Frank Hoffmann
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 6:57 AM
To: Korean Studies Discussion List
Subject: Re: [KS] Vulnerabilities of Korean Studies

Hello Sue-Je, and others:

Just a brief note regarding your "Koreanist database" remark (quoted below).
The Korea Foundation did create such database a couple of years ago 
(was also announced here on the list). Here is the link:
  http://www.clickkorea.org/koreanists/

I am not too sure how many scholars updates their own profile there, 
and I am much less sure if anyone actually is using it, as it is 
nicely hidden in Internet NeverNeverLand.

The Asia Society also has a simialr database about "Asia Experts:"
  http://www.asiasource.org/experts/ax_mp_01.cfm


Best,
Frank



------quote-------
>Also, I wanted to ask if it was in the Korea Foundation's interest 
>to create a Koreanist database of some kind.  This listserve is 
>helpful, but it would be even more helpful to see who's out there, 
>what they're doing and where they are, how many Korea related 
>courses there are at their school, and maybe even if they're 
>heritage or non-heritage scholars, etc.
-------------------



-- 
--------------------------------------
Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws