HKOB0004FU Nordic Korean Studies Days 2019 (F19)

The Nordic Korean Studies Days 2019 will take place from March 11-15, 2019. The primary objective of this intensive course is giving our students the opportunity to become familiar with the multifaceted spectrum of Korean Studies. The expertise of nine participating professors and lecturers from Helsinki, Oslo, Turku, Stockholm and Copenhagen cover the disciplines of anthropology, folklore, history, sociology, politics, literature and cultural studies. A joint intensive course can offer our students insights that none of the teachers alone would be able to provide.Every day of the intensive course will focus on one or two disciplines which will be co- taught by the respective experts. 

All participating students are expected to be prepared for all activities during the Nordic Korean Studies Days 2019. Active participation will be monitored. All teachers together will prepare a reader that includes all mandatory readings and a list of potential topics for students’ presentations. This reader will be circulated well in advance. Each student is obliged to give a 10-15 minutes oral presentation at the Nordic Korean Studies Days Students’ Conference which will take place on the last day of the intensive course. The students’ conference is an opportunity for the students to practice their presentation skills as well as to discuss the topic they choose for a written assignment that will be part of each student’s own BA or MA program.

The intensive course will be a combination of seminars, group discussions, workshops and lectures. Every day of the intensive course will be devoted to one or two disciplines in Korean Studies. All activities on a day will be led by the experts of the respective discipline. Teachers will co-teach, avoid frontal teaching and engage the students in all activities. Whenever possible we aim at working in small groups to optimize the learning effect.

Schedule: 

Day 1 (March 11)

Foci: Anthropology & Folklore

Experts: Sonja Häussler (Professor, Stockholm), Antti Leppänen (Lecturer, Turku)

Seminar: Changing dynamics in family and kinship in contemporary Korea Lunch Talk: Folklore and folklore studies in North Korea Workshop/Discussion: Folklore and folklore studies in North Korea Evening Talk: The individual and the community in Korea

Day 2 (March 12)

Focus: History

Experts: Vladimir Tikhonov (Professor, Oslo), Andrew Logie (Assistant Professor, Helsinki)

Seminar: Communist movement in colonial Korea as a cultural phenomenon

Lunch Talk: “History wars” in contemporary South Korea

Workshop/Discussion: 20th century historiography of early Korea

Evening Talk: Current day pseudo historiography of early Korea and counter critiques

Day 3 (March 13)

Focus: Politics & Sociology

Experts: Sabine Burghart (University Lecturer, Turku), Gabriel Jonsson (Senior Lecturer, Stockholm), Jeong-Im HYUN (Senior Researcher, Turku)

Seminar: Inter-Korean relations

Lunch Talk: Political leadership on the Korean peninsula: consolidation of democracy in South Korea?

Workshop/Discussion: South Korea’s foreign aid: an East Asian exception?

Evening Talk: Revisiting Korea by social movements: long love story for the democracy

Day 4 (March 14)

Foci: Literature & Cultural Studies

Experts: Sonja Häussler (Professor, Stockholm), Barbara Wall (Assistant Professor, Copenhagen), Iain Sands (PhD candidate, Stockholm)

Seminar: Ghost stories in K-literature and K-drama

Lunch Talk: The romanticization of Crown Prince Sado in popular culture Workshop/Discussion: North Korean Culture in the 1980s

Evening talk: North Korean Refugee Performances in South Korea

Day 5 (March 15)

Students’ conference

The envisaged output of the course include:

• a reader that can serve as an introduction to the multifaceted spectrum of Korean Studies
• a strong network between students and teachers in Korean Studies at Nordic universities
• training in oral communication skills
• development of new teaching methods

We expect this intensive course to result in a more permanent and institutionalized teaching cooperation between the five universities involved. Such cooperation would facilitate the urgently needed diversification of the curriculum in Korean Studies at each university and could serve as a model for future projects.