Gender and Social Change in Korea

Course Description

This course explores the shifting category of femininity and masculinity, women’s roles and their experiences of social change in Korea from the late 19th century into contemporary times. Concepts such as ‘new women’ surfaced in discourses at the turn of the last century, as gender became the site in which notions of ‘tradition’ and the ‘modern’ came to be defined. Such ideological struggles came to have concrete consequences for women during the colonial period as women were mobilized like never before in public arenas as imperial subjects under Japanese colonial rule. With the end of the colonial period, the battle over the ideal image of woman continued in full force as both North and South Korea steamed full speed ahead towards modernization. We will examine how gender intersects with political and economic developments in modern Korea, including mediums such as films and short stories.

Course Goals

  • Understanding of modern Korean history with a focus on gender relations.
  • Introductionto gender studies and awareness of the way gender is constructed in different historical periods.
  • Research and writing skills using various research tools to make persuasive arguments, written clearly and concisely.

Course Structure

Classes will include combinations of lectures, films, and discussions. Each week, students are responsible for submitting written responses (2-3 paragraphs) before class, which should lay out one’scritical understanding and analysis of the readings, and 1-2 questions or issues that could be raisedin class for discussion. Students will take turns presenting these in class to facilitate discussion.

Course Requirements & Grade Distribution

Class Attendance, Participation20%

Presentation & Weekly Responses 30%

Final Paper (15double-spaced pages) 50%

Course Policy

  • Plagiarism: All written work should be composed in the student’s own words and the ideas of others should be properly cited.
  • Assignments: All reading and written assignments are required and should be done before class. Late assignments will be deducted a full letter grade for each late day (i.e. A to a B, B to a C…).
  • Attendance: Regular class attendance is mandatory. More than 2 absences can result in a failing grade for the course.
  • Gadgets: All communication devices must be turned off for the duration of the class, and laptops may be used only to take notes.
  • Final note: This syllabus may be modified throughout the semester, and it is the responsibility of each student to keep up to date of any and all announcements made in class.

Required Texts

  • Elaine Kim & Chungmoo Choi eds., Dangerous Women: Gender and Korean Nationalism (Routledge, 1998)
  • Laurel Kendall ed., Under Construction: the Gendering of Modernity, Class, and Consumption in the Republic of Korea (University of Hawaii Press, 2002)
  • Katharine Moon, Sex Among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S.-Korea Relations (Columbia University Press, 1997)
  • Wan-SuhPark, A Sketch of the Fading Sun (White Pine Press, 1999)

Recommended Text for those unfamiliar with Korean history

  • Bruce Cumings, Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History (Norton, 2005)

Class Schedule

Week 1: Introductions

Class Overview

Week 2: Gender & Modernity

What is gender?

  • Joan W. Scott, “Gender: A useful category of historical analysis,” The American Historical Review, vol. 91, no. 5 (December 1986) p. 1053-1075
  • Chandra Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: feminist scholarship and colonial discourses,” Feminist Review 30 (Autumn 1988) p. 61-88

What is modernity?

  • Laurel Kendall & Mark Peterson, “‘Traditional Korean Women’ – A Reconsideration,” in Korean Women: View from the Inner Room (p. 5-17)
  • Laurel Kendall, Introduction in Under Construction (p. 1-24)

Week 3: Women, Tradition, Modernity

Wife/Mother in Choson Korea

  • Martina Deuchler, “Women during the Yi Dynasty” in Virtues in Conflict: Tradition and the Korean Woman Today, ed. Sandra Mattielli (Royal Asiatic Society, 1977) p. 1-47
  • Cho Haejoang, “Male dominance and mother power: the two sides of Confucian patriarchy in Korea,” in Confucianism and the Family, eds. Slote & DeVos (1998) p. 187-203
  • FILM REVIEW: Watch Chunhyangdyon (Dir. Im Kwon-taek, 2000) – How does the film’s portrayal of Choson women differ from the readings?

Modernization Movement

  • Hyaeweol Choi, “Women’s Literacy and New Womanhood in Late Choson Korea,”Asian Journal of Women's StudiesVol. 6,No. 1 (2000) p. 88-115
  • Park Yong-ock, “The Women’s Modernization Movement in Korea,” in Virtues in Conflict: Tradition and the Korean Woman Today, ed. Sandra Mattielli (Royal Asiatic Society, 1977) p. 99-111

Week 4: The Woman Question

The New Woman

  • Insook Kwon, “The New Women’s Movement in 1920s Korea: Rethinking the relationship between Imperialism and Women,” Gender and History 10.3 (1998): 381-405
  • Park Wan-Suh, Momma’s Stake 1 in Sketch of the Fading Sun (p. 94-137)
  • In Class: Film about Na Hye-suk

The Militant Woman

  • Kenneth M. Wells, “The Price of Legitimacy: Women and The Kunuhoe Movement, 1927-1931,” in Colonial Modernity in Korea, Gi-Wook Shin & Michael Robinson eds. (1999):191-220

Week 5: Women and War

Wartime Mobilization (Imperial Motherhood & ‘Comfort Women’)

  • Hyunah Yang, “Remembering the Korean Military Comfort Women: Nationalism, Sexuality, and Silencing,” in Dangerous Women (p. 123-139)
  • Anna Davin, “Imperialism and Motherhood,” History Workshop Journal 5 (1978): 9-40

Korean War (Experience of War)

  • Park Wan-Suh, Momma’s Stake 2 & 3in Sketch of the Fading Sun (p. 138-199)
  • In Class: Comfort Women: One Last Cry

Week 6: Gendered Bodies 1

Geopolitics of female bodies

  • Katharine Moon, Sex Among Allies(1-103)

Geopolitics of female bodies (continued)[Pass out Mid-term essay questions]

  • Katharine Moon, Sex Among Allies (127-160)
  • In Class: The Women Outside: Korean Women and the US Military

Week 7: Gendered Bodies 2

Yanggongju

  • Hyun Sook Kim, “Yanggongju as an Allegory of the Nation: Images of Working-Class Women in Popular and Radical Texts,” in Dangerous Women (p. 175-202)

Reproduction

  • Cho Hyoung, “Fertility control, reproductive rights and women’s empowerment in Korea,” Asian Journal of Women’s Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, p. 103-32 (1997)

Week 8: No Class (Professor out of town for a conference) – Assignment for this week TBA

Week 9: Women in South Korea

Capitalism

  • Heidi Hartmann, “The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union,” in Women and Revolution, ed. Lydia Sargent (South End Press, 1981)
  • Seung-kyung Kim, “Big companies don’t hire us, married women,” Feminist Studies Vol. 22, No. 3 (Fall 1996):555-571
  • Seung-kyung Kim, “Productivity, Militancy and Femininity: Gendered Images of South Korean Women Factory Workers,” Asian Journal of Women’s Studies Vol. 3, No. 3 (1997)
  • Park Wan-Suh, Poverty That is Stolen in Sketch of the Fading Sun (p. 58-72)

Week 10: Women in North Korea

Communism

  • Nancy Fraser, “From Redistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of Justice in a ‘Post-Socialist’ Age,” New Left Review, Vol. 212 (July/August 1995) p. 68-93

Revolutionary Mothers

  • Hyun Ok Park, “Ideals of Liberation: Korean Women in Manchuria,” in Dangerous Women (p. 229-248)
  • Jon Halliday, “Women in North Korea: An Interview with the Korean Democratic Women’s Union,” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 17, no. 3 (1985): 46-56
  • Kyung Ae Park, “Women and Revolution in North Korea,” Pacific Affairs 65, no. 4 (Winter 1992-1993): 527-45

Week 11: Convergence of the Left and Right

Nationalism

  • Chungmoo Choi, “Nationalism and Construction of Gender in Korea,” in Dangerous Women (p. 9-32)
  • Seungsook Moon, “Begetting the Nation: The Androcentric Discourse of National History and Tradition in South Korea,” in Dangerous Women (p. 33-66)
  • FILM REVIEW: Watch Sopyonje (Dir. Im Kwon-taek, 1993) – Do you agree or disagree with Chungmoo Choi’s analysis of the film or do you have a different take on the film?

Week 12: Masculinity

  • June Lee, “Discourses of Illness, Meanings of Modernity: A Gendered Construction of Songinbyong,” in Under Construction (p. 55-78)
  • Seungsook Moon, “The Production and Subversion of Hegemonic Masculinity: Reconfiguring Gender Hierarchy in Contemporary South Korea,” in Under Construction (p. 79-114)
  • Elaine H. Kim, “Men’s Talk: A Korean American View of South Korean Constructions of Women, Gender, and Masculinity,” in Dangerous Women (p. 67-118)

Week 13: Gender and Class

Gendered Mobility

  • Nancy Abelmann, “Women, Mobility, and Desire: Narrating Class and Gender in South Korea,” in Under Construction (p. 25-54)
  • Roger Janelli and Dawnhee Yim, “Gender Construction in the Offices of a South Korean Conglomerate,” in Under Construction (p. 115-140)

Week 14: Women’s Movement

[One-Page Final Paper Proposal Due]

  • Jeong-LimNam, “Women’s Labor Movement, State Suppression, and Democratization in South Korea,” Asian Journal of Women's Studies, Vol. 8,No. 1 (2002) p. 71-95
  • Miriam Ching Yoon Louie, “Minjung Feminism: Korean Women’s Movement for Gender and Class Liberation,” Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. 18, No. 4 (1995): 417-430
  • Sueng-sook Moon, “Carving out space: civil society and the women’s movement in South Korea,” Journal of Asian Studies 61(2) (2002): 473-500
  • In-Sook Kwon, “How Identities and Movement Cultures Became Deeply Saturated with Militarism: Lessons from the Pro-democracy Movement of South Korea,” Asian Journal of Women’s Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2 (2005)

Week 15: What’s Next?

Cultural Turn

  • Joo-hyun Cho, “Intersectionality Revealed: Sexual Politics in Post-IMFKorea,” Korea Journal (Autumn 2005) 86-112
  • So-Hee Lee, “The Concept of Female Sexuality in Korean Popular Culture,” in Under Construction (p. 141-164)

Third Wave?

  • Haejoang Cho, “Feminist Intervention in the Rise of ‘Asian’ Discourse,” Asian Journal of Women’s Studies,Vol. 3,No. 3 (1997)
  • Cho Haejoang, “Living with Conflicting Subjectivities: Mother, Motherly Wife, and Sexy Woman in the Transition from Colonial-Modern to Postmodern Korea,” in Under Construction (p. 165-196)

Week 16: Final Reflections - TBA

GUIDE TO CRITICAL READING

Whenever you read a text you should ask yourself the following questions.

  1. Is the text a primary or a secondary source?
  2. In important ways you read the two types of text differently.
  3. What was the author’s basic intent in writing it?
  4. PRIMARY: What interests was the author attempting to advance / defend / critique / oppose? Put another way, what “discourse” was s/he taking part in?
  5. SECONDARY: What position is the author staking out? What earlier scholarly consensus is s/he agreeing or disagreeing with?
  6. What initial questions does the author pose?
  7. Why are answers to those questions important?
  8. What is the author’s central argument and how forcefully is it stated?
  9. What types of evidence does the author employ to support his/her argument?
  10. Does the author’s argument rest on any unarticulated (and thus undefended) assumptions?
  11. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the author’s argument?
  12. Are you persuaded – do you agree with the author’s argument? Why, or why not?

GUIDE TO WRITTEN RESPONSES

Post your response on Sakai under Discussions for the corresponding week, including the following components:

  • Do NOT summarize, but demonstrate that you did the reading by engaging with some of the main themes and issues that you found interesting and/or problematic. In other words, share your comments, critiques and reactions by addressing:

What are the main arguments / points of the reading you found interesting?

Are there any problems with the arguments, and if so, what are they?

  • Posit one or two questions or issues you would like to raise for discussion.
  • Identify terms, concepts or words that you did not understand (even after using a dictionary) and would like to go over in class.

Method of Assessment

The grading for this course is designed to evaluate student mastery of the course goals, focusing on Korean culture and history that would be relevant to understanding gender in contemporary Korea. The assignments require students to read and interpret texts as sources for the past and present with a critical eye. Assignments also require students to write intensively, focusing on constructing effective arguments using texts as evidence. Upon completion of the course, students will be able to communicate verbally and in writing an understanding of Korean culture and history, which will be assessed using the following assessment grid.

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS ASSESSMENT GRID

A: Great / B: Good / C: Okay / D: Poor / F: Fail
Structure & Organization
Clear introduction, thesis, argument & conclusion
Argument & Content
Thesis supported by evidence; convincing arguments made with credible evidence and refutation of counterarguments
Language
Use of clear sentences, good wording, strong voice
Mechanics
Spelling, grammar, citation

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