2003 Banner Year for Korean Studies Ph.D. Graduates

Aeri Shin

James Lee, Jiwon Shin, Professors Carter Eckert and David McCann, John Frankl, Scott Swaner (left to right); Mark Byington, Christine Kim, Michael Kim, and Chiho Sawada (absent)

Never before have we had as many Korean studies Ph.D. graduates as in 2003. Reluctantly but proudly, we say farewell to eight graduates, including three literature specialists—John Frankl, Jiwon Shin, and Scott Swaner—and five historians—Mark Byington, Christine Kim, Michael Kim, James Lee, and Chiho Sawada. We applaud their outstanding contributions to scholarship and in recognition of their past and future successes, we introduce…

Mark Byington

After completing his master’s degree in the Regional Studies - East Asia (RSEA) program at Harvard, Mark continued his doctoral studies in the East Asian Languages and Civilizations (EALC) department. A scholar of early Korean history, Mark specializes in the archaeology of Korea and northeastern China (Manchuria). His dissertation research deals with the formation of the earliest states in the Korea-Manchuria region (Koguryŏ, Puyŏ, and Parhae) and the ways in which state foundation myths were incorporated into a developing historiography that encompassed multiple states. Next year Mark will be editing his dissertation for publication as a Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Korea Institute.

John Frankl with wife Sungim and daughter Anna

John Frankl

John studied at the University of California, Berkeley and Yonsei University in Korea, before coming to Harvard. During his tenure in the RSEA program and the EALC department, he organized the second and third annual Korean Studies Graduate Student Conference. His doctoral dissertation is titled "Our Country: Changing Imanges of the Foreign in Korean Literature and Culture." John will be returning to his alma mater as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, Center for Korean Studies.

Christine Kim

After completing her M.I.A. at Columbia University, Christine continued her graduate work in the RSEA program and the History and East Asian Languages (HEAL) department at Harvard. Her dissertation, "The King Is Dead: Monarchism and National Identity in Modern Korea," examines the significance of the Chosŏn royal house during the waning years of the dynasty. She explores how the long-standing political tradition of monarchism came to an end in the relatively brief span of Korea’s thirty five year colonial experience, by examining nascent Korean ideas of political modernity as well as the carefully orchestrated policies linking Japan’s imperial and colonial agendas. She will be taking up a tenure-track position at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Michael Kim

Mike graduated from Dartmouth College before entering the RSEA program and continued his study of modern Korean history in the EALC department. His dissertation deals with the discourse surrounding nationalism and identity in colonial and post-colonial Korea. Beginning in the fall, Mike will be lecturing at the School of Area and International Studies at Seoul National Universiy in Korea.

James Lee

After writing a thesis on Korean economic development in the RSEA program, James continued his study of Korean history in the HEAL department. His dissertation focuses on an international history of the division of Korea, from 1945 to 1948, based on primary materials in Korean, Russian and English. James also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Asia Quarterly from 2002 to 2003. Next year, James will be a Research Associate at the Harvard Project on Cold War Studies at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and he will be teaching at Bowdoin College as an Adjunct Lecturer in Asian Studies.

Chiho Sawada

During his time as a Harvard degree candidate Chiho took leaves to gain work experience in the American Embassies in Seoul and in Beijing, and at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as for pursuing language study and dissertation research in Japan and Korea. His dissertation, "Cultural Politics in Colonial Korea and Imperial Japan: Negotiating Assimilation and Education Policies, 1919-1922," reevaluates the structures and dynamics of power connecting the imperial metropole and the colonial periphery. For the last couple of years, Chiho has been helping to nurture Korean Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Starting in September, he will be a Research Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University and teaching in the History Department.

Jiwon Shin

Jiwon Shin entered the EALC department after completing her B.F.A. and M.A. in Asian Studies at Cornell University. She spent the past academic year as a Post-doctoral Associate at Yale University’s Council on East Asian Studies, and she will begin teaching as Assistant Professor of Korean Literature at the University of California, Berkeley this fall.

Scott Swaner

For his dissertation, Scott examined the dialectical interaction between poetry and politics in South Korea from 1960-1987. In addition to working on his dissertation, he did a fair amount of poetry translation, including that of Pak Nohae, as part of an effort to pressure Pak’s release from prison in 1997 as well as contributing to the Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry, edited by Professor McCann. With support from the Daesan Foundation Grant, Scott will be translating Hwang Ji-woo’s Someday I’ll be Sitting in an Overcast Bar. In the fall, Scott will begin his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Professor David McCann (left) and Scott Swaner (right)