Stanford University

Society

FSI researchers work to understand continuity and change in societies as they confront their problems and opportunities. This includes the implications of migration and human trafficking. What happens to a society when young girls exit the sex trade? How do groups moving between locations impact societies, economies, self-identity and citizenship? What are the ethnic challenges faced by an increasingly diverse European Union? From a policy perspective, scholars also work to investigate the consequences of security-related measures for society and its values.

The Europe Center reflects much of FSI’s agenda of investigating societies, serving as a forum for experts to research the cultures, religions and people of Europe. The Center sponsors several seminars and lectures, as well as visiting scholars.

Societal research also addresses issues of demography and aging, such as the social and economic challenges of providing health care for an aging population. How do older adults make decisions, and what societal tools need to be in place to ensure the resulting decisions are well-informed? FSI regularly brings in international scholars to look at these issues. They discuss how adults care for their older parents in rural China as well as the economic aspects of aging populations in China and India.

Indonesian President Yudhoyono's First Thirty Days: An Evaluation + Prospects for the Future

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Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is Indonesia's new president. He and his vice presidential running mate, Jusuf Kalla, were elected by a landslide on 20 September 2004 and inaugurated one month later. On 18 November, when Prof. Liddle speaks, the new government will have been in office for nearly a month. What can be said about its performance to date - and in the future? Prof. Liddle will cover a range of topics related to the new leadership in Jakarta, including the prospects for democratic consolidation.

R. William Liddle is a well-known Indonesia specialist. He has written about Indonesian politics since the early 1960s. His recent scholarly publications include: "Indonesia's Approaching Elections: Politics, Islam, and Public Opinion" (with Saiful Mujani), Journal of Democracy (January 2004) and "Indonesia's Democratic Transition: Playing by the Rules," in Andrew Reynolds, ed., The Architecture of Democracy (2002). Prof. Liddle writes and speaks often for international and Indonesian media.

Bahtiar Effendy has written widely on Islam and politics in Indonesia. His latest book is Islam and the State in Indonesia (2003). He is deputy director of the Institute for the Study and Advancement of Business Ethics. He also co-hosts a popular Indonesian television talk show on public affairs.

Okimoto Conference Room

R. William Liddle Professor of Political Science Speaker Ohio State University
Bahtiar Effendy Lecturer Commentator University of Indonesia and Islamic State University, Jakarta
Seminars
Southeast Asia Program

Rhetoric and Realism in Foreign Policy: Australia between Southeast Asia and the United States

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Australian Prime Minister John Howard's government has strongly reaffirmed the ANZUS (Australia-New Zealand-US) alliance and his country's cultural ties to Europe. Critics have replied that these policies impede the development of Australian relations with Southeast Asia, especially now that the US is so unpopular in much of the region. How valid is the critique? And how will likely trends in Southeast Asia and the outcome of the American presidential election affect Australia's search for a balance between its proximity to Asia and its alliance with America? In addition to addressing these questions, Dr. Engel will argue that in making foreign policy, identity politics need not be sacrificed to or precluded by pragmatic interest. In Southeast Asian international relations, rhetoric and realism hardly rule each other out.

Dr. David Engel's responsibilities at the Australian Embassy in Washington include policies toward Southeast Asia. He has directed the Indonesia section of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2001-03) in Canberra, served in Jakarta (1998-2001) and Phnom Penh (1993-95), and worked on Australia's relations with Vietnam and Laos as well. He received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 1989.

This is the Forum's 1st seminar of the 2004-2005 Academic Year

Okimoto Conference Room

David Engel Political Counselor Embassy of Australia, Washington, D.C.
Seminars
Southeast Asia Program

Stanford Summer 2005 Workshop Fellowships on Korea

Authors
Hong Kal
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The Korean Studies Program at the Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) in the Stanford Institute for International Studies announces workshop fellowships for June 27-July 1, 2005. Financial support for these fellowships has been provided by a generous grant from the Korea Research Foundation and the Pantech Co., Ltd. and Curitel Communications Inc.(Pantech Group).

The workshop, co-chaired by Michael Robinson (Indiana University) and Gi-Wook Shin (Stanford University), seeks to invite five fellows of any discipline currently engaged in research related to the theme of Culture Wars in Korea (see description below), both historical and contemporary, to explore this subject in an intensive week of discussions and collaborative critique of each others' work. Preference will be given to junior scholars (recent Ph. D and ABD). Along with application, each candidate must submit a draft paper on the related issues and will be expected to spend the week of June 27 to July 1 at Stanford for this intensive workshop. There will be a list of core readings to help unify our discussions. After the workshop, all participants are expected to submit revised papers that will be considered for publication in a special issue of the Journal of Korean Studies in 2006. Each fellow will be provided airfare, accommodation, and $1,000.

Culture Wars in Korea: Globalized Mass Culture, State Control, and Conservative Reaction

This seminar will focus on the genesis and evolution of globalized mass culture in Korea. Of particular interest will be the conflict engendered in Korea as state authority and conservative elites attempted to control hybrid cultural forms linked to global flows of mass culture. From the beginning, the emergence of capitalist mass culture in Korea has provoked a variety of conservative responses: colonial censorship and repression, cultural nationalists opposing the "debasement" of traditional cultural forms, post-liberation attempts to control and mediate cultural formations, state censorship of popular cinema, song, and pulp fiction, formal blockade of Japanese popular cultural imports, Minjung activist debates over resisting urban mass culture in favor of agrarian expressions of Koreanness, etc. The motivations for such actions stemmed from the perception of the state, conservatives, and even nationalist ideologues that Korean traditional identity was being effaced by the onslaught of global mass culture. Ironically, in the last decade the Korean entertainment industry has had considerable success exporting its films, rock groups, and television series in East Asia. Some critics attribute this success to a unique Korean cultural sensibility embedded in such cultural exports. This brings the debate about mass culture full circle-from distrust and loathing of the new mass culture to the thought that it might actually embody Korean identity itself.

Submission Deadline

Applicants must submit a CV, one letter of recommendation, and a draft paper by March 1, 2005. Only complete applications will be considered.

Applications should be sent to:

Dr. Hong Kal

Korean Studies Program

Encina Hall, Room E301

Stanford University

Stanford, CA 94305-6055

Phone: 650-725-4206

Fax: 650-725-2592

Email: hongkal@stanford.edu

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Gender and National Identity in Contemporary Japanese Fiction

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Japan Brown Bag Series

Co-hosted with the Center for East Asian Studies and the Stanford Society of Fellows in Japanese Studies. A light lunch will be served.

Philippines Conference Room

John Treat Professor of Japanese Literature Yale University
Seminars

Divine Encounters, Wolf Killing and Mythological Patricide: Ainu Identities and Japanese Colonialism

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Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Japanese "nationalism" (if such a term is even applicable) depended less on imagined similarities among Japanese than it did on their contrived customary differences from foreign peoples such as the Ainu. The boundaries of the early modern Japanese realm were ethno-geographical, and Ainu identity and difference was critical in constructing the borders of Japan.

After 1799, the Tokugawa shogunate and, later, the Meiji state, undertook policies of deculturation and assimilation toward the Ainu, because the Meiji strategy toward state building relied less on difference than on myths of internal homogeneity. The Meiji state conscripted Ainu into the myth of Japanese homogeneity through assimilation; but earlier forms of Ainu autonomy and difference first had to be destroyed.

Interestingly, wolf eradication offers one vantage point from which to view the process of Ainu deculturation and assimilation in the context of the colonization of Hokkaido and the creation of the modern myths that provided the foundation for Japan's ethnic nationalism. Ainu origin mythology held that the Ainu people were born from a union of a wolf and a goddess, and so when Ainu tracked and killed wolves and wild dogs under state bounty programs legitimized as "imperial grants," they committed mythological patricide, replacing their origin myths with Japanese ones that, over the course of the late Meiji period, served as the foundation of Japan's modern nation.

Japan Brown Bag Series

Co-hosted with the Center for East Asian Studies

Philippines Conference Room

Brett Walker Professor of History Montana State University
Seminars

Director's Welcoming Remarks

Authors
Gi-Wook Shin
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Director, Gi-Wook Shin welcomes the new members to the Korean Studies Program at the beginning of 2004-2005 academic year.

Dear members of the Korean Studies community,

I trust that all of you have had a great summer and are now ready for the beginning of a new academic year. I welcome all of you back to campus and to another exciting year for the Korean Studies Program (KSP) at Stanford University.

First of all, I welcome the new members to our program this year. Philip Yun and John Feffer are our inaugural Pantech Fellows and will conduct research related to Korea, both North and South. Both Philip and John have distinguished careers and will be great assets to all of us at KSP. Philip has held high-level positions at the State Department and worked closely with former Secretary of Defense, Dr. William Perry, in addition to practicing law in both Korea and the U.S. John is an accomplished writer and editor, and his most recent publication is North Korea/South Korea: U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis. I would also like to welcome Jasmin Ha, who will serve as our new Program Coordinator and assistant to me. She worked previously at The Korea Society in New York City and brings to us both her experience and vision for Korean studies at Stanford. Soyoung Kwon, a North Korean expert, will also be staying at APARC as a Shorenstein Fellow for the coming year.

Hong Kal and Chiho Sawada, post-doctoral research fellows, will remain with us for another year. Hong has accepted a tenure-track assistant professorship at York University, but will not start her appointment until the 2005-06 year. Rakhi Patel, our student assistant, will continue to work part-time to assist Jasmin and myself.

We will resume our popular luncheon seminars on October 15 with a presentation by Eric Larson of the Rand Corporation on his project on South Korean attitudes towards the United States. There will also be numerous other exciting events and programs on Korea-related issues throughout the coming year. Please visit our website for more detailed and continuously updated information.

KSP is also now home to the Journal of Korean Studies for which Chiho and I serve as associate editor and co-editor, respectively, of the journal. In addition, we have been engaged in a number of exciting projects. I have just finished my overdue book on Korean ethnic nationalism and am currently working with Kyu Sup Hahn, a doctoral student in Communications, on a project on U.S. media coverage of Korea and South Korean media coverage of the U.S. from 1992-2004. We will also continue on-going projects such as "Globalization in Korea" and "Historical Injustice, Reconciliation, and Cooperation." I appreciate the assistance of the many students and researchers who have been working with me on these projects over the years.

This year we will do an international search to fill the William Perry Chair in contemporary Korea. This is an extremely important appointment for the Korean Studies Program at Stanford, and you will have the opportunity to meet candidates throughout the year.

Thanks again for your continued support of the Korean Studies Program at Stanford. I look forward to seeing you at the various KSP events and programs throughout the year.

Cordially,

Gi-Wook Shin,

Director

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Journal of Korean Studies, volume 9

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Between 1979 and 1992, the JKS became a leading academic forum for the publication of innovative in-depth research on Korea. Now under the editorial guidance of Gi-Wook Shin and John Duncan, this journal continues to be dedicated to quality articles, in all disciplines, on a broad range of topics concerning Korea, both historical and contemporary.

This edition's contents:

Articles

  1. Literary Production, Circulating Libraries and Private Publishing: The Popular Reception of Vernacular Fiction Texts in the Late Chosun Dynasty - Michael Kim
  2. The Uses and Abuses of Wonhyo and the "Tong Pulkyo" Narrative - Eunsu Cho
  3. National History and Domestic Spaces: Secret Lives of Girls and Women in 1950s South Korea in O Chong-hui's "The Garden of Childhood"and "The Chinese Street" - Jin-Kyung Lee
  4. Disturbing Images: Rebellion, Usurpation, and Rulership in Early Sixteenth Century East Asia-Korean Writings on Emperor Wuzong - David M. Robinson
  5. Sugi's Collation Notes to the Koryo Buddhist Canon and Their Significance for Buddhist Textual Criticism - Robert E. Buswell, Jr.

Book Reviews

  1. The Melodrama of Mobility: Women, Talk, and Class in Contemporary South Korea by Nancy Abelmann. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003. xviii, 325 pp. $27.00 (paper). Reviewed by Michael E. Robinson
  2. The North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950 by Charles K. Armstrong. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003. xv, 265 pp. $39.95 (Cloth). Reviewed by Frank Hoffmann
  3. Kwangju Diary: Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age by Jae-eui Lee. Trans. by Kap Su Seol and Nick Mamatas. Los Angeles: UCLA Asian Pacific Monograph Series, 1999. 172 pp.
  4. Laying Claim to the Memory of May: A Look Back at the 1980 Kwangju Uprising by Linda S. Lewis. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002. xxi, 189 pp.
  5. Contentious Kwangju: The May 18 Uprising in Korea's Past and Present edited by Gi-Wook Shin and Kyung Moon Hwang. Boulder: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. xxxi, 159 pp. Reviewed by Hong Kal
  6. Hanguk hyondae minjok undong yongu-haebang hu minjok kukka konssol undong kwa tongil chonson by So Chung-sok, Seoul: Yoksa pipyongsa, 1991. 678 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Won 14,000. Reviewed by Kyung Moon Hwang
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Books
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Journal Publisher
Rowman & Littlefield
Authors
Gi-Wook Shin

Political Significance of Royal Portraits in the Early Choson Period

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During the Choson period, ojin or portraits of kings were regarded as the most important of all figural images. From the beginning of the Choson dynasty, many ojin were produced and housed in chinjon or portrait halls. King T'aejo (r. 1392-1398), the founder of the Choson dynasty, enshrined one of his ojin at the Chunwon Hall in Yonghung, where he was born, and another in a chinjon in Kyongju, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Silla. The third king T'aejong (r. 1400-1398), who was the fifth son of King T'aejo, established two more chinjon: Munso Hall in the capital city Hanyang and Kyemyong Hall in Kaesong, the capital of the previous Koryo dynasty. He also enshrined two additional portraits of King T'aejo in Pyongyang, the old capital of Kokuryo, and in Chonju, the royal family's ancestral home. As a result, there were altogether six chinjon in the early Choson period.

In contrast to the Koryo dynasty when chinjon were often established at Buddhist temples, most Choson royal chinjon had no relation to Buddhism. Instead, they were built in a Confucian architectural style and were used for the observance of ancestor worship ceremonies based on Confucian rites.

Choson ojin and chinjon often manifested the king's authority and power. Due to his usurpation of the throne by killing his brother, King T'aejong struggled to maintain his legitimacy throughout his reign. He used ojin and chinjon to consolidate his kingship and to suppress challenges posed by high officials. Therefore, ojin in the early Choson dynasty was a very political art form, and most recorded discussions on ojin were based on political context with little or no regard for artistic agendas.

Philippines Conference Room

Insoo Cho Assistant Professor, Art History University of Southern California
Seminars
Korea Program

The Party Elite and China's Trajectory of Change

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China's path of political and economic change has diverged sharply from the experience of virtually all other state socialist regimes. Distinguishing it are its rapidly growing economy and expansion of higher education, deep engagement with the world economy and radical shift towards educational attainment in Party recruitment. These signs of political revitalisation portend a quiet transformation of China's elite, and may reinforce a stable evolution towards effective and less authoritarian forms of government. The greatest threat to this scenario would be state sector reform via privatisation that leaves large percentages of state assets in the hands of elite families.

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Publication Type
Journal Articles
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Journal Publisher
China: An International Journal
Authors
Andrew G. Walder
External URL
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