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Title Peace Corps volunteers and the making of Korean studies in the United States edited by Seung-Kyng Kim and Michael Robinson
Published Washington University of Washington Press 2020
©2020

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Description 1 online resource (xiv, 252 pages) illustrations
Series Center for Korea Studies publications
Contents Kwangju, trauma, and the problem of objectivity in history-writing / Don Baker -- How the Peace Corps changed our lives / Edward J. Baker -- On being part of the Peace Corps generation in Korean studies / Donald N. Clark -- A road less traveled: from Rome to Seoul via the Peace Corps / Carter J. Eckert -- Serendipity, Uyon, and Inyon / Bruce Fulton -- Did women have a Peace Corps-Korea experience? / Laurel Kendall -- At the border: women, anthropology, and North Korea / Linda Lewis -- Empathy, politics, and historical imagination: a Peace Corps experience and its aftermath / Michael Robinson -- Peace Corps-Korea group K-1: empowering to serve as new voices in Korean studies / Edward J. Shultz -- A Korean perspective: Peace Corps volunteers, Europe, and the study of Korea / Okpyo Moon -- Cultural immersion, imperialism, and the academy: an outsider's look at Peace Corps volunteers' contribution to Korean studies / Clark W. Sorensen
Summary From 1966 through 1981 the Peace Corps sent more than two thousand volunteers to South Korea, to teach English and provide healthcare. A small yet significant number of them returned to the United States and entered academia, forming the core of a second wave of Korean studies scholars. How did their experiences in an impoverished nation still recovering from war influence their intellectual orientation and choice of study-and Korean studies itself? In this volume, former volunteers who became scholars of the anthropology, history, and literature of Korea reflect on their experiences during the period of military dictatorship, on gender issues, and on how random assignments led to lifelong passion for the country. Two scholars who were not volunteers assess how Peace Corps service affected the development of Korean studies in the United States. Kathleen Stephens, the former US ambassador to the Republic of Korea and herself a former volunteer, contributes an afterword
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCOhost, viewed on October 19, 2020)
Subject Peace Corps (U.S.) -- Korea (South)
SUBJECT Peace Corps (U.S.) fast
Subject Koreanists -- United States
Volunteers -- Korea (South)
HISTORY -- Asia -- Korea.
Koreanists
Volunteers
United States
Korea (South)
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
Author Kim, Seung-Kyung editor
Robinson, Michael editor
ISBN 9780295748146
0295748141