All Korea Program Multimedia

Gi-Wook Shin Interview on Arirang TV's "Heart to Heart"

Speaking on June 17, 2010 in a television interview in South Korea, Dr. Gi-Wook Shin, Director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) at Stanford University, said, “No one can now ignore or overlook the importance of Asia.” He spoke of the rise of Asian countries in the past 50 years, particularly in the area of economics, and the world’s growing awareness of Asia. Dr. Shin discussed the important role that Shorenstein APARC and its Korean Studies Program (KSP) play in the field of Asian studies, noting that Shorenstein APARC’s unique focus on research, policy, and the social sciences distinguishes it from most academic Asian studies centers in the United States. He explained that not only do scholars from Shorenstein APARC carry out academic research, but they also “produce some policy reports for the American government and…try to promote dialogue between the U.S. and Asian countries.”

In his interview with Heart to Heart (Arirang TV) host Kolleen Park, Dr. Shin discussed the history of the field of Asian studies, noting the growing importance of Korean studies in the past 15 years. Dr. Shin said that in the past 100 years of Korean history are found “the key elements that we talk about in the social sciences.” He then asked, “How can we use the Korean experience to generate a general model or theoretical experience for the rest of the world?”

Dr. Shin’s interview took place during his visit to South Korea for the POSCO Asia Forum where he was a keynote speaker. The theme of the 2010 Forum was the “Globalization of Asian Culture.” “Looking back, Asia had a great contribution to human society and human civilization,” Dr. Shin said. His motivation in addressing the attendees of the Forum, he explained was, “I felt that it was time to take Asia more seriously and think about how Asia can continue to make contributions to human society and civilization.”

Highlights from the POSCO Asia Forum, a summary of Dr. Shin’s new book One Alliance, Two Lenses: U.S.-Korea Relations in a New Era (Stanford University Press 2010), and Dr. Shin’s thoughts on relations between the two Koreas are also covered in the interview.