Fulbright Forum
6:00 P.M. on Friday, June 25th, 2010
R.S.V.P. by Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

The Korean-American Educational Commission warmly welcomes you to our third Fulbright Forum of the 2009-2010 program year with Fulbright Junior Researchers Tyler Hill and Grace Jung.

  Hyundai Asan: A Gateway Unexplored
and
"Cacophony of Voices": Modern Korean Literature During the Colonial Period (1910-1945)
 
Open to all, the Fulbright Forum serves as a periodic gathering for the Fulbright Family at large, including past and present grantees and friends of Fulbright.  Please reply to Emily Kim Goldsmith (executive.assistant@fulbright.or.kr) by Tuesday, June 22nd if you will attend.  Regrets need not reply.  This month's Forum will be held at 6:00 PM sharp on Friday, June 25th in the 6th floor conference room at the KAEC Building in Mapo-gu, Seoul, with a reception to follow in the 3rd floor administrative offices.  Please visit the KAEC website for maps and directions (http://www.fulbright.or.kr/en/kaec/map.php). 

Please note the change in time. Because the two grantees will present consecutively, we will begin at 6:00 PM. To respect both the audience and presenters, late arrivals will not be allowed to enter after 6:05 PM.
 
 Hyundai Asan: A Gateway Unexplored
 
Summary

  As the 60th anniversary marking the outbreak of the Korean War approaches and as tragedies such as the Cheonan continue to dominate headlines, the call for effectively addressing the division of the Korean peninsula need no justification.  When seeking to make sense of this massive field of Korean Unification Studies, we are inundated with terms such as the 6 Party Talks, Denuclearization, and the Basic Agreement.  This study of inter-Korean Relations, however, centers on none of these ‘hot topics’.  Rather, this presentation shifts focus by exploring Hyundai Asan’s inter-Korean joint business ventures – a markedly different approach from that of traditional diplomacy and armed aggression, yet still aimed at achieving the same goal: addressing the division of the Korean peninsula. 

  This project bears a very precise objective: To discern the impact of Hyundai Asan’s joint business ventures on inter-Korean relations and the prospects for Korean Unification.  And in order to perform this study, Hyundai Asan will be analyzed as a vehicle for promoting Economic Unification, as examined through a Bilateral Functionalist framework. 

  Through shifting the focus of inter-Korean relations from High-Politics to Low-Politics, traditional diplomacy and warfare to economics and business, and from the 6 Party Talks and demands for Denuclearization to that of an Industrial Complex and Tourism Program, this project sets out to catalyze critical thought and greater understanding by exploring Hyundai Asan’s efforts to address the inter-Korean Conflict. 
 
Biography

Tyler Hill is a Junior Fulbright Researcher studying inter-Korean Relations and Korean Unification Studies – specifically, his research centers on Hyundai Asan’s inter-Korean joint business ventures.  A resident of New Jersey, Tyler received his BA in Political Science and Philosophy in June 2009 from Northwestern University.  Upon returning to the United States, he will enroll in a Juris Doctorate program beginning in August 2010.  

"Cacophony of Voices": Modern Korean Literature During the Colonial Period (1910-1945)
 
Summary

This presentation will focus on modern Korean literature written during the Japanese occupation (1910-1945), and explore what scholars Bruce Fulton and Youngmin Kwon refer to as a “cacophony of voices” (Modern Korean Short Fiction, xii). The question here is whether such a variety of literary voices worked (and still work) as an advantage to Korean society or against it. As the nation underwent modernization, colonization and Westernization, what were the effects on its literature? Factions in modern Korea and failure to unify versus a diverse range of artistic stylizations that developed will be observed, as well as what traces of modern literature linger in today’s literature and Korean society. The presentation will also include why colonial Korean literature is important for contemporary scholars and writers—Diaspora Korean writers, native Korean writers, and translators—to pay attention to.
 
Biography

Grace H. Jung was born in Busan, South Korea and moved to Brooklyn, New York at age 5. She attended schools in New York and New Jersey and graduated from Pace University with a degree in English literature and philosophy. She decided to pursue Korean literature through the encouragement of New York poet and mentor Charles North. In the future, she plans to publish writings completed during her grant period and to pursue a graduate degree in East Asian literature with a concentration in Modern Korean literature and film. Her most recent publications will be featured in this year’s Fulbright Review and Infusion magazine.