Modern Korean History

Modern Korean History

Course Outline

Instructor: Young Ick Lew, Ph.D.

Office: New Millennium Hall 605

E-mail:

Course Description:

This is a graduate course designed to help English-speaking students learn modern Korean history from mid-nineteenth century to the 1950s with emphasis on political history of the given period. Major topics to be dealt with in this course include the late nineteenth-century Korean reform movement, Japanese colonial rule, Korean independence movement, the emergence of two rival regimes after 1945, and the Korean War (1950-1953) and its aftermaths in South and North Korea.

Course Requirements:

1. Mandatory attendance at classes and active participation in discussion.
2. Independent reading of the papers and book chapters listed in the “Lecture Topics and Reading Requirements”shown below.
3. A 20-page critical book review on one of the three following books:

-Gregory Henderson. Korea: The Politics of the Vortex.

Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, 1968.

-Bruce Cumings. Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History.

New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997.

-Sun Yup Paik, From Pusan to Panmunjom. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 1992

This term paper must be typed doublespace and due prior to the final examination day.

Grading Policy:

Students’grade will depend on (1) the results of two examinations (mid-term and the final), (2) the quality of the book review, (3) the record of class attendance, and (4) the level of participation in the classroom discussions.

Textbooks:

Carter Eckert ……Young Ick Lew, et. al. Korean Old and New: A History. Seoul: Ilchokak, 1990.

Andrew C. Nahm. Korea: Tradition and Transformation. Seoul: Hollym, 1988.

Lecture Topics and Reading Assignments

1. An overview of Modern Korean History
2. Early Korean Contact with the West and the Taewon’gun’s Exclusionism, 1800s-1870’s

-Key-Hiuk Kim, Opening of Korea: a Confucian Response to the Western Impact (Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 1999), pp. 1-23.

1. Opening of the “HermitKingdom”to Japan and the West, 1876-1880’s

-Key Hiuk Kim, ibid., pp. 80.

-Young Ick Lew, “The Shufeldt Treaty and Early Korean American Interaction, 1882-1905,”The Journal of Asiatic Studies, 25:1 (1982), pp. 36-51.

-______, “Japanese Challenge and Korean Response, 1870-1910, ”Korea Journal, 25:12 (Dec. 1985), pp. 36-51.

1. The “Enlightenment”Movement and the Kapsin Coup, 1870-1884.

-Young Ick Lew, “Late Nineteenth-Century Korean Reformers’Receptivity to Protestantism: The Cases of Six Leaders of the 1880’and 1890’s Reform Movements,”[아시아 文化], 4 (1988), pp. 163-66.

-Yong-ho Ch’oe,: “A Reappraisal of Coup of 1884,”Korean Studies, 2 (1978).

5. Korea under the Chinese Domination and the Outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, 1885-1894

-Young Ick Lew,: “Yuan Shih-k’ai’s Residency and the Korean Enlightenment Movement, 1885-94, ”The Journal of Korean Studies, 5 (1984), pp. 63-107.

-______, “Minister Inoue Kaoru and the Japanese Reform Attempts in Korea during the Sino-Japanese War, 1894-1895,”The Journal of Asiatic Studies, 27:2 (1984), pp. 145-86.

6. Tonghak and the Tonghak Peasant Uprising, 1894

-Susan Shin, “The Tonghak Movement : From Enlightenment to Revolution,”Korean Studies Forum, 5 (Winter-Spring, 1978-1979), pp. 1-79.

-Young Ick Lew, “The Conservative Character of the 1894 Tonghak Peasant Uprising.”TheJournal of Korean Studies, 7(1990), pp. 149-80.

7. The Kabo Reforms and the Independence Club Movement, 1884-1898

-Young Ick Lew, “Korean-Japanese Politics behind the Kabo Reform Movement, 1894 to 1896,”The Journal of Korean Studies, 3 (1981), pp. 39-81.

-______, “The Reform Efforts and Ideas of Pak Yong-hyo, 1894-1895,”KoreanStudies, 1 (1977), pp. 21-61.

-Vipan Chandra, Imperialism, Resistance and Reform in Late Nineteenth Century Korea: Enlightenment and the Independence Club (Berkeley: Center of Korean Studies, University of California, 1988), pp. 104-125; 173-210.

8. Japanese Colonial Rule, 1905-1945

-Han-Kyo Kim, “The Japanese Colonial Administration on Korea. An Overview,”Andrew C. Nahm ed., Korea under Japanese Colonial Rule (Kalamazoo, Mich: The Center for Korean Studies, Western Michigan University, 1973), pp. 41-53.

-Bruce Cumings, “The Legacy of Japanese Colonialism in Korea,”Raymon H. Myers and Mark R. Peattie, eds., The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945 (Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 487-496.

9. Korean Independence Movement, 1905-1945

-Frank Baldwin, “Participatory Anti-Imperialism: The 1919 Independence Movement,”TheJournal for Korean Studies, 1 (1970), pp. 123-62.

-Chong-sik Lee, The Politics of Korean Nationalism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965), pp. 129-179.

10. Liberation and the Birth of Rival Regimes, 1945-1948

-Bruce Cumings, “American Policy and Korean Liberation, “Frank Baldwin, ed., WithoutParallel: The American-Korean Relationship Since 1945 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1973), pp. 39-93.

-Chong-sik Lee, “The Personality of Four Koran Political Leaders: Syngman Rhee, Kim Ku, Kim Kyu-sik, and Yo Un-hyong,”Korea and Asia: In Commemoration of theSixtieth Birthday of Dr. Kim Junyop (Seoul: The Asiatic Research Center, Korea University, 1983), pp. 181-226.

11. The Korean War (1950-1953) and After

-David Rees, A Short History of Modern Korea (Ellan Vannin: Ham Publishing Co., 1988), pp. 96-133.

-James B. Palais, “‘Democracy’in South Korea, 1948-72,”Frank Baldwin ed., WithoutParallel, pp. 96-133.

-Chong-sik Lee, Korean Workers’Party: A Short History. (Stanford: Hoover Institute Press, 1978), pp. 1-134.