SEJONG PRIZE FOR WRITING IN KOREAN STUDIES

Sponsored by the Korean Studies Program and the Center for East Asian Studies, the Sejong Prize for Writing in Korean Studies recognizes and rewards outstanding examples of writing by Stanford students in an essay, term paper, or thesis produced during the current academic year in any discipline within the area of Korean Studies, broadly defined. The competition is open to both undergraduate and graduate students.

Hajin Jun has won the 2nd Annual Korean Studies Writing Prize. A second-year Ph.D. candidate in History, Hajin wrote her essay, "Render unto Caesar? Presbyterian Missionaries and the 1935 Shinto Shrine Controversy," for a colloquium on Japan imperialism in Asia led by Associate Professor of History Jun Uchida. Professor Uchida says that Hajin's study is:

"highly original in focus and analysis." It examines the multi-faceted conflict in mid-1930s Korea between Presbyterian missionaries, many of them American, and the Japanese colonial government over the latter's increasing insistence that all Koreans engage in Shinto shrine worship. According to Professor Uchida, Hajin used "a rich collection of previously untapped missionary writings housed at the Presbyterian Historical Society…offers a nuanced, and novel, understanding of the controversy [and] significantly expands and complicates our understanding of the relationship between church and state in colonial Korea…."

Hajin's academic interests include modern Korean history and the history of religion. She received a B.A. in History with Highest Honors from the University of Michigan, and conducted research in Korea in 2011 and 2012 on a Fulbright research grant. Hajin this year also won a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship.