Week 11: Late Chosŏn [Joseon] and the Japanese occupation

In Week 11 we have a selective look at Chosŏn [Joseon] period history (the first contacts with Westerners), and we jump to the Japanese colonial period. We cannot cover everything in detail, but you can learn from each other through the discussion board. Even if you did not read the same materials as the original poster, you can make comments, ask questions, and look for similarities and differences, and in the process learn some of the history you will not cover in great detail. But you will have the tools, and some starting points, to make sense of this part of Korean history.

The schedule for tasks/discussions etc. is based on last week’s. I have slightly adjusted the due dates for the Final Project Bites. As you know, I am very flexible and aware of the I need your feedback to know if this works for you, if it is too much, or if you have suggestions for improvements. You can email me or leave anonymous comments on the Pad.

All passwords (PDFs) and links for Zoom sessions can be found on the Canvas Homepage.

Scroll down for the readings/course materials for this week.

Schedule
  • Monday (anytime before midnight): reflection on course materials from week 10.
        • Add to your blog in category HST259
        • Include the words “Week 10” in the title of your post
  • Wednesday: Zoom session 11.30am (pink header link on Canvas Homepage): check in with your classmates, talk about the final project and your ideas, or about the course materials for the week.
  • Wednesday (anytime before midnight): Initial post on the Canvas discussion board due.
  • Wednesday (anytime before midnight): Final project bite: description of your chapter/section/ contents (step 3)
        • Topic: now firmly settled
        • Main ideas you want to highlight: argument, thesis, or research question, or other reasons why this is useful
        • What you hope the reader will learn from the chapter
        • Length: 200-400 words
        • Post on your site as a blog post, category HST259
  • Thursday: anytime before midnight: Two responses to other students’ posts due, on the Canvas discussion board.
  • Friday Zoom session 11.30am (pink header link on Canvas Homepage): “regular class”: we will go into more detail about the course materials for the week, based on the discussions.
  • Friday Date change: Wednesday April 8 (anytime before midnight): Final project bite: Annotated bibliography (step 4)
        • Use Chicago Notes and Bibliography style- use the Bibliography formatting for this exercise.
        • Strive for at least three good quality, preferably scholarly, sources (chapters, articles, or full-length books). If you cannot find three reputable sources, provide an overview of your search process: where did you search, which terms etc. This will help me to guide you towards more/other materials. Remember for Korean terms there may be an alternative transcription (McCune Reischauer vs. Revized Romanization).
        • Each annotation should include:
              • A brief (3 sentence) summary of the contents of each.
              • A brief explanation of how you intend to use this information.
              • Shortcomings you noticed in the source (doesn’t answer a particular question, reasons why you think it is not sufficiently scholarly to use, etc.)
              • Here are some concrete examples from the OWL at Purdue.
        • Share as google doc, and allow me editing access: this gives us a space to build a collective bibliography for your project (this may be the same google doc as in step 2)
Readings/Course materials

(scroll down for this week’s materials) OPTIONAL: Covering the gap:

If you want to find out more about what happened between the start of the Chosŏn [Joseon] period, and the end, in addition to the textbook (Chapter 8) these are useful sources:

  • Mark Klobas. “Interview with Christopher Lovin, author of King Chŏngjo: An Enlightened Despot in Early Modern Korea.” New Books in East Asian Studies. Jan. 6, 2020. https://newbooksnetwork.com/christopher-lovins-king-chongjo-an-enlightened-despot-in-early-modern-korea-suny-press-2019/
        • The author talks about the consequences of one of the saddest episodes of Chosŏn history: the killing of Prince Sado (see textbook, Seth, Chapter 8: Late Chosŏn, section “The Politics of Late Chosŏn”). The son of the Prince became king, and his experience as a young child had a severe influence on his view on kingship.
  • Haboush, JaHyun Kim. Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea. University of California Press, 2013. (reissue of the 1996 translation)
        • The Introduction provides a good overview of the late Chosŏn politics, and the position of the wife of the ill-fated Prince Sado.
        • The fourth memoir (“The Memoir of 1805”) provides the details of the father-son conflict that led to Prince Sado’s execution (in all but name).

THIS WEEK’S MATERIAL:

For background: textbook Chapter 8 (roughly), 9 and 10, as desired and required to understand the rough outline of developments.

For the discussion board posts, choose ONE of the following two options:

  • Hamel, Hendrik. Hamel’s Journal: And a Description of the Kingdom of Korea, 1653-1666. Translated by Jean-Paul Buys. Third Rev.ed. Seoul: Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, 2011. (PDF)
        • Hamel was a Dutchman on his way from Taiwan to the Dutch trading post Deshima in Nagasaki, Japan. He and the crew of the Sperwer (“Sparrow Hawk”) were shipwrecked on the coast of Korea, and spent considerable time in the country. They were the first Europeans to set foot in Korea. His account is the first Western language account of Korea, and introduced this mysterious country to the Europeans.
        • Pick about 20 pages from the “journal” section (pp. 18ff of the PDF), or the “description” (pp. 69ff of the PDF) and consider the following questions: What frame of reference does Hamel have for this country nobody knows much about? What does he learn? Does that square with what you learn from Chapter 6-7 in the textbook? What is the value of this document? Include a short summary of the section you read (2-3 sentences) to bring us all up to speed with the contents of your selection.
  • Kang, Hildi. Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, 1910–1945. Cornell University Press, 2001. (ebook Trexler)
        • These are interviews with Koreans who lived through the colonial period. The interviews are organized chronologically, and you can use chapter 10 as background to help you pick your own selection.
        • Read about 20 pages of the interviews. You can select from different parts, to get insights in different time period as the occupation and colonization evolved. Discussion questions to ponder: what do we gain from comparing the events described in the final sections of chapter 9, and chapter 10, with these interviews? How did people think of the Japanese? In which ways do these interviews help you to understand Japanese-Korean relations? Include a short summary of the section you read (2-3 sentences) to bring us all up to speed with the contents of your selection.
  • Slides (Gdrive link)