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| can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies? [message #6854] |
Thu, 25 September 2003 18:28  |
Ann Sung-hi Lee
Messages: 4
Registered: September 2003
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Junior Member |
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Dear list,
I have failed in my bid to be a cultural comprador.
Collecting my unemployment checks, I have time to read what I want to read.
I can't help asking myself whether or not Asian Americans can have a voice in Asian Studies.
Orientalists remind us that only a native's "access" to Asian culture could possibly give an Asian any use value in the field. This results in pitting Asian Americans (issei, nisei, 1.5 generations, and in betweens) against each other -- a divisive strategy that succeeds because of the economics of Necessity, in which Asian Americans are only too willing to sell each other out in order to survive. It is a strategy that pre-empts any possible alliances that Asian Americans might try to form, alliances that dominant whites find threatening.
I remember a male WASP professor at Harvard (now at a different school) asking department majors to introduce ourselves and our reasons for majoring in East Asian Studies. One Asian student, recently immigrated, said he wanted to study his culture. I said I had a somewhat academic interest in Asia, rather than studying it as "my culture," since I was born in N.Y.C. and grew up here.
The WASP male professor, perhaps sensing a smugness in my attitude, immediately said, "But isn't that what it is? _Your_ culture?" It was a harsh rebuke of my confidence in my American identity. My skin color meant, to him, that I would never be accepted as an American.
Ann Lee
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| Re: can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies? [message #6862 is a reply to message #6854] |
Fri, 26 September 2003 04:59  |
Vladimir Tikhonov
Messages: 34
Registered: July 2000
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Member |
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Dear colleagues,
if what Ann Lee writes about the atmosphere of the "WASP domination" in our
field in the USA is true (as I have never been over there, it is hard for
me to assess the situation on my own), that I cannot help concluding that,
perhaps, old Soviet Union wasn't the worst of all possible worlds. Several
prominent ethnic Korean scholars won recognition in their respective
special fields (M.N.Pak - ancient history, G.F.Kim - North Korean politics,
Lim Su - folk sayings, etc.) as "dominant authorities", so to say, and I
really don't remember any talks about "tribe wars" along ethnic lines among
their students, so ethnically mixed as they were. I don't think anybody
really questioned - or would ever question - the loyalty of the ethnic
Korean "patriarchs" of Soviet/Russian Korean Studies to Soviet/Russian
culture or research traditions. Perhaps - I just guess - it was old
intelligentsia tradition of fighting against official
antisemitism/"patriotic" chauvinism in Tzarist Russia, in combination with
Tzarist/Soviet tradition of absorbing ethnically heterogeneous local
elites, that precluded any ethnic divisions in the Korean Studies field?
Anyway, I can only hope that the immunity to racialist taxonomies will
survive in Russia, despite all the efforts to the contrary on the part of
its today's rulers...
Vladimir Tikhonov
At 15:28 25.09.2003 -0700, you wrote:
>Dear list,
>
>I have failed in my bid to be a cultural comprador.
>Collecting my unemployment checks, I have time to read what I want to read.
>I can't help asking myself whether or not Asian Americans can have a voice
>in Asian Studies.
>Orientalists remind us that only a native's "access" to Asian culture
>could possibly give an Asian any use value in the field. This results in
>pitting Asian Americans (issei, nisei, 1.5 generations, and in betweens)
>against each other -- a divisive strategy that succeeds because of the
>economics of Necessity, in which Asian Americans are only too willing to
>sell each other out in order to survive. It is a strategy that pre-empts
>any possible alliances that Asian Americans might try to form, alliances
>that dominant whites find threatening.
>I remember a male WASP professor at Harvard (now at a different school)
>asking department majors to introduce ourselves and our reasons for
>majoring in East Asian Studies. One Asian student, recently immigrated,
>said he wanted to study his culture. I said I had a somewhat academic
>interest in Asia, rather than studying it as "my culture," since I was
>born in N.Y.C. and grew up here.
>The WASP male professor, perhaps sensing a smugness in my attitude,
>immediately said, "But isn't that what it is? _Your_ culture?" It was a
>harsh rebuke of my confidence in my American identity. My skin color
>meant, to him, that I would never be accepted as an American.
>
>Ann Lee
>
>
>
Vladimir Tikhonov,
Department of East European and Oriental Studies,
Faculty of Arts,
University of Oslo,
P.b. 1030, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.
Fax: 47-22854140; Tel: 47-22857118
Personal web page:
http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.htm l
Electronic classrooms: East Asian/Korean Society and Politics:
http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html
East Asian/Korean Religion and Philosophy:
http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html
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| Re: can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies? [message #6866 is a reply to message #6854] |
Sat, 27 September 2003 09:53 |
Tatiana.Gabroussenko
Messages: 4
Registered: April 2003
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Junior Member |
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Dear Ann! I am no American and no Asian, and, probably, I am missing something, but... Honestly, I found no rebuke in poor "WASP" response. (What a funny word, by the way. Calling names is an offence even in kindergarten). Why do not presuppose that this...I prefer to call him person--that this person just meant to give you a credit, a compliment? He is studying a culture, to which you naturally belong, as he supposes, by the right of your birth, by the color of your skin, even before you started to study it. It just means that you must understand it deeper and learn quicker then he does. Probably, when talking about "your culture" he referred to the culture of your ancestors, in which you might be interested in. What is so viciously "WASPish" about it?
And how did you know that he denied your American self? Did he try to speak Korean with you before you opened your mouth? Or sing "Ariran" as a greeting?
May be, you just took it all wrong and your Harvard professor was a nice, kind guy? A little bit clumsy with compliments, but definitely good-willing.
(Off-topically: I always feel flattered when my friends referring to some unreasonable behavior of Kim Chong-il tell me:"O, this is YOUR Korea again....")
Best regards, Tatiana (female).
----- Original Message -----
From: Ann Sung-hi Lee
To: Korean Studies Discussion List
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 2:28 AM
Subject: [KS] can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies?
Dear list,
I have failed in my bid to be a cultural comprador.
Collecting my unemployment checks, I have time to read what I want to read.
I can't help asking myself whether or not Asian Americans can have a voice in Asian Studies.
Orientalists remind us that only a native's "access" to Asian culture could possibly give an Asian any use value in the field. This results in pitting Asian Americans (issei, nisei, 1.5 generations, and in betweens) against each other -- a divisive strategy that succeeds because of the economics of Necessity, in which Asian Americans are only too willing to sell each other out in order to survive. It is a strategy that pre-empts any possible alliances that Asian Americans might try to form, alliances that dominant whites find threatening.
I remember a male WASP professor at Harvard (now at a different school) asking department majors to introduce ourselves and our reasons for majoring in East Asian Studies. One Asian student, recently immigrated, said he wanted to study his culture. I said I had a somewhat academic interest in Asia, rather than studying it as "my culture," since I was born in N.Y.C. and grew up here.
The WASP male professor, perhaps sensing a smugness in my attitude, immediately said, "But isn't that what it is? _Your_ culture?" It was a harsh rebuke of my confidence in my American identity. My skin color meant, to him, that I would never be accepted as an American.
Ann Lee
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| Re: can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies? [message #6875 is a reply to message #6862] |
Sun, 28 September 2003 14:35 |
Ann Sung-hi Lee
Messages: 4
Registered: September 2003
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Junior Member |
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Dear Vladimir,
I will give an example of the relevance of the politics of race in Asian studies.
When I, as an Asian American not born in Korea, discuss Korean minjung nationalist literature, am I not using Western dominant narratives of democratic revolution, and thereby serving the mythic, hegemonic American ideology of "melting pot"? As Rey Chow notes, it is important to recognize Koreans' lived experiences of the ideology of democracy, and Koreans' perceptions and translations of that ideology. In the U.S., "certain ethnic groups, as a result of racism, will never be able to enact in full "the script of "consent." (Wong, 1993:41): "With European ethnics, there is enough cultural congruence with the Anglo mainstream, and enough reality in the promised rewards of assimilation, to validate the rhetoric of consensual nation-building and blunt the damage of generational divisions. Asian Americans are socialized into embracing the same expectations but are denied their full realization on a collective basis." (Wong 1993: 43).
Ann
Citation:
Sau-ling Cynthia Wong, Reading Asian American Literature: From Necessity to Extravagance (Princeton: Princeton Univerrsity Press, 1993).
----- Original Message -----
From: Vladimir Tikhonov
To: Korean Studies Discussion List
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 1:59 AM
Subject: Re: [KS] can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies?
Dear colleagues,
if what Ann Lee writes about the atmosphere of the "WASP domination" in our field in the USA is true (as I have never been over there, it is hard for me to assess the situation on my own), that I cannot help concluding that, perhaps, old Soviet Union wasn't the worst of all possible worlds. Several prominent ethnic Korean scholars won recognition in their respective special fields (M.N.Pak - ancient history, G.F.Kim - North Korean politics, Lim Su - folk sayings, etc.) as "dominant authorities", so to say, and I really don't remember any talks about "tribe wars" along ethnic lines among their students, so ethnically mixed as they were. I don't think anybody really questioned - or would ever question - the loyalty of the ethnic Korean "patriarchs" of Soviet/Russian Korean Studies to Soviet/Russian culture or research traditions. Perhaps - I just guess - it was old intelligentsia tradition of fighting against official antisemitism/"patriotic" chauvinism in Tzarist Russia, in combination with Tzarist/Soviet tradition of absorbing ethnically heterogeneous local elites, that precluded any ethnic divisions in the Korean Studies field? Anyway, I can only hope that the immunity to racialist taxonomies will survive in Russia, despite all the efforts to the contrary on the part of its today's rulers...
Vladimir Tikhonov
At 15:28 25.09.2003 -0700, you wrote:
Dear list,
I have failed in my bid to be a cultural comprador.
Collecting my unemployment checks, I have time to read what I want to read.
I can't help asking myself whether or not Asian Americans can have a voice in Asian Studies.
Orientalists remind us that only a native's "access" to Asian culture could possibly give an Asian any use value in the field. This results in pitting Asian Americans (issei, nisei, 1.5 generations, and in betweens) against each other -- a divisive strategy that succeeds because of the economics of Necessity, in which Asian Americans are only too willing to sell each other out in order to survive. It is a strategy that pre-empts any possible alliances that Asian Americans might try to form, alliances that dominant whites find threatening.
I remember a male WASP professor at Harvard (now at a different school) asking department majors to introduce ourselves and our reasons for majoring in East Asian Studies. One Asian student, recently immigrated, said he wanted to study his culture. I said I had a somewhat academic interest in Asia, rather than studying it as "my culture," since I was born in N.Y.C. and grew up here.
The WASP male professor, perhaps sensing a smugness in my attitude, immediately said, "But isn't that what it is? _Your_ culture?" It was a harsh rebuke of my confidence in my American identity. My skin color meant, to him, that I would never be accepted as an American.
Ann Lee
Vladimir Tikhonov,
Department of East European and Oriental Studies,
Faculty of Arts,
University of Oslo,
P.b. 1030, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.
Fax: 47-22854140; Tel: 47-22857118
Personal web page: http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.htm l
Electronic classrooms: East Asian/Korean Society and Politics:
http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html
East Asian/Korean Religion and Philosophy:
http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html
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| Re: can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies? [message #6879 is a reply to message #6875] |
Mon, 29 September 2003 09:35 |
Vladimir Tikhonov
Messages: 34
Registered: July 2000
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Member |
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Dear Ann,
Frankly, the idiosyncratic interpretation of the minjung literature as
"democratic" (in the current American sense of the world) looks to me
biased not that much ethnically/racially as ideologically. What is
omitted/sidelined is obvious anti-imperialist/socialist/"third
world"-solidarist self-identification of many minjung authors. By the way,
I sense really strong "dominant" bias in terming all the plethora of
anti-systemic movements in contemporary South Korea either "nationalist" or
"anti-American". "MinjokjuUi" was, for many of the proponents of the
movement, as much "nationalism" as "third-worldism" - in the 1980s, they
clandestinely read on Ho Chi Minh, and in the late 1990s, Che Gevara became
a new star. That were exactly the heirs of the 1980s movement who started
in the late 1990s the campaign of disclosure of the atrocities committed by
Park Chong Hee army in South Vietnam - and this campaign was moved exactly
by the passion for Asian/"third world" solidarity. In fact, this all goes
back very deep, down to the times in the 1900s when the anti-colonial
narrative on the demise of Vietnam (WOllam Mangguksa in Korean, by Liang
Qichao and a Vietnamese anti-colonial activist) was the must-read among the
"new intelligentsia". But I guess that this side of the minjung movement -
the most dangerous for the US hegemony in the long run - was largely
sidelined by some of the "mainstream" American narratives on the subject.
With best greetings,
Vladimir
At 11:35 28.09.2003 -0700, you wrote:
> Dear Vladimir,
>
>I will give an example of the relevance of the politics of race in Asian
>studies.
>When I, as an Asian American not born in Korea, discuss Korean minjung
>nationalist literature, am I not using Western dominant narratives of
>democratic revolution, and thereby serving the mythic, hegemonic American
>ideology of "melting pot"? As Rey Chow notes, it is important to
>recognize Koreans' lived experiences of the ideology of democracy, and
>Koreans' perceptions and translations of that ideology. In the U.S.,
>"certain ethnic groups, as a result of racism, will never be able to enact
>in full "the script of "consent." (Wong, 1993:41): "With European
>ethnics, there is enough cultural congruence with the Anglo mainstream,
>and enough reality in the promised rewards of assimilation, to validate
>the rhetoric of consensual nation-building and blunt the damage of
>generational divisions. Asian Americans are socialized into embracing the
>same expectations but are denied their full realization on a collective
>basis." (Wong 1993: 43).
>
>Ann
>
>Citation:
>Sau-ling Cynthia Wong, Reading Asian American Literature: From Necessity
>to Extravagance (Princeton: Princeton Univerrsity Press, 1993).
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Vladimir Tikhonov
>To: Korean Studies Discussion List
>Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 1:59 AM
>Subject: Re: [KS] can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies?
>
>Dear colleagues,
>
>if what Ann Lee writes about the atmosphere of the "WASP domination" in
>our field in the USA is true (as I have never been over there, it is hard
>for me to assess the situation on my own), that I cannot help concluding
>that, perhaps, old Soviet Union wasn't the worst of all possible worlds.
>Several prominent ethnic Korean scholars won recognition in their
>respective special fields (M.N.Pak - ancient history, G.F.Kim - North
>Korean politics, Lim Su - folk sayings, etc.) as "dominant authorities",
>so to say, and I really don't remember any talks about "tribe wars" along
>ethnic lines among their students, so ethnically mixed as they were. I
>don't think anybody really questioned - or would ever question - the
>loyalty of the ethnic Korean "patriarchs" of Soviet/Russian Korean Studies
>to Soviet/Russian culture or research traditions. Perhaps - I just guess -
>it was old intelligentsia tradition of fighting against official
>antisemitism/"patriotic" chauvinism in Tzarist Russia, in combination with
>Tzarist/Soviet tradition of absorbing ethnically heterogeneous local
>elites, that precluded any ethnic divisions in the Korean Studies field?
>Anyway, I can only hope that the immunity to racialist taxonomies will
>survive in Russia, despite all the efforts to the contrary on the part of
>its today's rulers...
>
>Vladimir Tikhonov
>
>
>
>
>
>At 15:28 25.09.2003 -0700, you wrote:
>>Dear list,
>>
>>I have failed in my bid to be a cultural comprador.
>>Collecting my unemployment checks, I have time to read what I want to read.
>>I can't help asking myself whether or not Asian Americans can have a
>>voice in Asian Studies.
>>Orientalists remind us that only a native's "access" to Asian culture
>>could possibly give an Asian any use value in the field. This results in
>>pitting Asian Americans (issei, nisei, 1.5 generations, and in betweens)
>>against each other -- a divisive strategy that succeeds because of the
>>economics of Necessity, in which Asian Americans are only too willing to
>>sell each other out in order to survive. It is a strategy that pre-empts
>>any possible alliances that Asian Americans might try to form, alliances
>>that dominant whites find threatening.
>>I remember a male WASP professor at Harvard (now at a different school)
>>asking department majors to introduce ourselves and our reasons for
>>majoring in East Asian Studies. One Asian student, recently immigrated,
>>said he wanted to study his culture. I said I had a somewhat academic
>>interest in Asia, rather than studying it as "my culture," since I was
>>born in N.Y.C. and grew up here.
>>The WASP male professor, perhaps sensing a smugness in my attitude,
>>immediately said, "But isn't that what it is? _Your_ culture?" It was a
>>harsh rebuke of my confidence in my American identity. My skin color
>>meant, to him, that I would never be accepted as an American.
>>
>>Ann Lee
>>
>>
>>
>Vladimir Tikhonov,
>Department of East European and Oriental Studies,
>Faculty of Arts,
>University of Oslo,
>P.b. 1030, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.
>Fax: 47-22854140; Tel: 47-22857118
>Personal web page:
>http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.ht ml
>Electronic classrooms: East Asian/Korean Society and Politics:
> http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html
> East Asian/Korean Religion and Philosophy:
>
>http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html
>----------
Vladimir Tikhonov,
Department of East European and Oriental Studies,
Faculty of Arts,
University of Oslo,
P.b. 1030, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.
Fax: 47-22854140; Tel: 47-22857118
Personal web page:
http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.htm l
Electronic classrooms: East Asian/Korean Society and Politics:
http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html
East Asian/Korean Religion and Philosophy:
http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html
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| Re: can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies? [message #6889 is a reply to message #6887] |
Tue, 30 September 2003 09:22 |
michael Robinson
Messages: 87
Registered: October 2001
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Member |
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Re: [KS] can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian StuDEar List:
I concurr with Horace. My experience is that the majority of people coming up in Korean studies are not white males of Anglo-Euro ancestry or whatever. Nor is there an overwhelming dominance of such in the field at large now a days. In a few years, then, the field will swing the other way and its demographic spread will remain locked for the long period of time in which it takes any field to turn over. Nor is it possible to easily impute race as the factor in tenure successes or non-success given the covert nature of many decisions and the fact that departments lapse into speaking in tongues at tenure meetings. I know of two cases this year in Asian Studies where the Anglo-Euro-white or whatever candidate was turned back with questions of language competence. Yet, again, that is only two and not a survey of a large field.
Mike Robinson
----- Original Message -----
From: Horace H. Underwood
To: Korean Studies Discussion List
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 2:13 AM
Subject: RE: [KS] can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies?
Perhaps the statement below is true in Europe - I don't know. For the past six years in Fulbright, however, the American graduate students and tenured scholars of Korean studies who have received Fulbright grants to do research in Korea have largely been Korean American.
Someone would have to do a survey of white male American professors married to Korean women to find their motivations, but in my own case I would not readily accept the idea that the motivation of my wife and myself in adopting our Korean daughters was to secure access to Korean language and culture.
Horace H. Underwood
-----Original Message-----
From: Koreanstudies-bounces@koreaweb.ws [mailto:Koreanstudies-bounces@koreaweb.ws]On Behalf Of Tobias Hübinette
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 2:55 PM
To: Korean Studies Discussion List
Subject: Re: [KS] can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies?
Korean studies is still a white reservation
The minuscule academic field of Korean studies encompassing less than 40 Western university departments outside North and South Korea and made up of a mixture of classical Orientalism and Cold War area studies is not only heavily male-dominated, but also a very white scene even if most undergraduate students are second generation immigrant or adopted Koreans. As tenures and professorships continue to be passed on to white males of whom the absolute majority are either married to a Korean woman or has adopted a Korean child to secure a comfortable access to Korean language and culture, ethnic Koreans are confined to the racialized roles of native informants and speakers.
--
Tobias Hübinette a.k.a. Lee Sam-dol
Ph.D. candidate in Korean Studies
Department of Oriental Languages
Stockholm University
SE-106 91 Stockholm
Sweden
Tel: 46-8-16 15 88
Fax: 46-8-15 54 64
E-mail: tobias@orient.su.se
Presentations:
Department of Oriental languages: www.orient.su.se/koreanskapersonal.html
Info Portal Asia: www.sub.su.se:591/sidor/forskning/koreaforsk/tobias/
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| RE: can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies? [message #6893 is a reply to message #6854] |
Wed, 01 October 2003 12:48 |
Vladimir Tikhonov
Messages: 34
Registered: July 2000
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Member |
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Dear Will, and others following this thread,
>Thanks for the correction. In fact, I was not completely sure how the name
>of the Vietnamese author, which reads "Pan P'aeju" in Korean, should be
>put in Vietnamese. Interestingly, the book used to be included into some
>editions of Liang's collected works printed posthumously. As far as I
>could understand, the only academic work in South Korean historiography
>that analyses the influence of The Wollam wang guksa in some details, is
>Ch'oe KiyOng's paper, entitled "KugyOk Wollam wang guksa e kwanhan
>ilgoch'al", and printed in , Vol. 6, 1985 (reprinted in
>, Ilchogak, 1997). But,
>unfortunately, Ch'oe doesn't analyze this work in the wider context of the
>development of ideas of "anti-hegemonic solidarity" in Korea, although it
>seems to be only natural to remember, for example, wide interest about
>Chang ChiyOn-translated AegUp kUnsesa (Recent History of Egypt - printed
>by HwangsOng sinmun sa in 1905, with Pak Unsik's highly impassioned
>foreword) in this context. Inspired partly by Liang Qichao's philippics
>against the "new methods of ruining [others'] countries" devised by the
>Europeans, and partly by some currents in Japanese Pan-Asianism, this
>current of thought seems to leave a strong imprint in Korean
>intellectuals' consciousness - and eventually, some of the earlier readers
>of Phan Boi Chau and Liang Qichao became Communists and Anarchists in the
>1920s, and converted "Asianism" into "anti-imperialist solidarity".
>
>Yours,
>Vladimir
>
>
>
>At 15:41 30.09.2003 -0400, you wrote:
>>Vladimir,
>>
>>One correction: The Wollam wang guksa (Viet nam vong quoc su) was not
>>written
>>by Liang Qichao. He did write the dedication to it. The work (translated
>>into
>>Korean in about 1905) was by the Vietnamese intellectual-activist Phan Boi
>>Chau.
>>
>>Will Pore
>>
>> >===== Original Message From Vladimir Tikhonov
>>
>>=====
>> >Dear Ann,
>> >
>> >Frankly, the idiosyncratic interpretation of the minjung literature as
>> >"democratic" (in the current American sense of the world) looks to me
>> >biased not that much ethnically/racially as ideologically. What is
>> >omitted/sidelined is obvious anti-imperialist/socialist/"third
>> >world"-solidarist self-identification of many minjung authors. By the way,
>> >I sense really strong "dominant" bias in terming all the plethora of
>> >anti-systemic movements in contemporary South Korea either "nationalist" or
>> >"anti-American". "MinjokjuUi" was, for many of the proponents of the
>> >movement, as much "nationalism" as "third-worldism" - in the 1980s, they
>> >clandestinely read on Ho Chi Minh, and in the late 1990s, Che Gevara became
>> >a new star. That were exactly the heirs of the 1980s movement who started
>> >in the late 1990s the campaign of disclosure of the atrocities committed by
>> >Park Chong Hee army in South Vietnam - and this campaign was moved exactly
>> >by the passion for Asian/"third world" solidarity. In fact, this all goes
>> >back very deep, down to the times in the 1900s when the anti-colonial
>> >narrative on the demise of Vietnam (WOllam Mangguksa in Korean, by Liang
>> >Qichao and a Vietnamese anti-colonial activist) was the must-read among the
>> >"new intelligentsia". But I guess that this side of the minjung movement -
>> >the most dangerous for the US hegemony in the long run - was largely
>> >sidelined by some of the "mainstream" American narratives on the subject.
>> >
>> >With best greetings,
>> >
>> >Vladimir
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >At 11:35 28.09.2003 -0700, you wrote:
>> >> Dear Vladimir,
>> >>
>> >>I will give an example of the relevance of the politics of race in Asian
>> >>studies.
>> >>When I, as an Asian American not born in Korea, discuss Korean minjung
>> >>nationalist literature, am I not using Western dominant narratives of
>> >>democratic revolution, and thereby serving the mythic, hegemonic American
>> >>ideology of "melting pot"? As Rey Chow notes, it is important to
>> >>recognize Koreans' lived experiences of the ideology of democracy, and
>> >>Koreans' perceptions and translations of that ideology. In the U.S.,
>> >>"certain ethnic groups, as a result of racism, will never be able to enact
>> >>in full "the script of "consent." (Wong, 1993:41): "With European
>> >>ethnics, there is enough cultural congruence with the Anglo mainstream,
>> >>and enough reality in the promised rewards of assimilation, to validate
>> >>the rhetoric of consensual nation-building and blunt the damage of
>> >>generational divisions. Asian Americans are socialized into embracing the
>> >>same expectations but are denied their full realization on a collective
>> >>basis." (Wong 1993: 43).
>> >>
>> >>Ann
>> >>
>> >>Citation:
>> >>Sau-ling Cynthia Wong, Reading Asian American Literature: From Necessity
>> >>to Extravagance (Princeton: Princeton Univerrsity Press, 1993).
>> >>
>> >>----- Original Message -----
>> >>From: Vladimir Tikhonov
>> >>To: Korean Studies Discussion List
>> >>Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 1:59 AM
>> >>Subject: Re: [KS] can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies?
>> >>
>> >>Dear colleagues,
>> >>
>> >>if what Ann Lee writes about the atmosphere of the "WASP domination" in
>> >>our field in the USA is true (as I have never been over there, it is hard
>> >>for me to assess the situation on my own), that I cannot help concluding
>> >>that, perhaps, old Soviet Union wasn't the worst of all possible worlds.
>> >>Several prominent ethnic Korean scholars won recognition in their
>> >>respective special fields (M.N.Pak - ancient history, G.F.Kim - North
>> >>Korean politics, Lim Su - folk sayings, etc.) as "dominant authorities",
>> >>so to say, and I really don't remember any talks about "tribe wars" along
>> >>ethnic lines among their students, so ethnically mixed as they were. I
>> >>don't think anybody really questioned - or would ever question - the
>> >>loyalty of the ethnic Korean "patriarchs" of Soviet/Russian Korean Studies
>> >>to Soviet/Russian culture or research traditions. Perhaps - I just guess -
>> >>it was old intelligentsia tradition of fighting against official
>> >>antisemitism/"patriotic" chauvinism in Tzarist Russia, in combination with
>> >>Tzarist/Soviet tradition of absorbing ethnically heterogeneous local
>> >>elites, that precluded any ethnic divisions in the Korean Studies field?
>> >>Anyway, I can only hope that the immunity to racialist taxonomies will
>> >>survive in Russia, despite all the efforts to the contrary on the part of
>> >>its today's rulers...
>> >>
>> >>Vladimir Tikhonov
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>At 15:28 25.09.2003 -0700, you wrote:
>> >>>Dear list,
>> >>>
>> >>>I have failed in my bid to be a cultural comprador.
>> >>>Collecting my unemployment checks, I have time to read what I want to
>> read.
>> >>>I can't help asking myself whether or not Asian Americans can have a
>> >>>voice in Asian Studies.
>> >>>Orientalists remind us that only a native's "access" to Asian culture
>> >>>could possibly give an Asian any use value in the field. This results in
>> >>>pitting Asian Americans (issei, nisei, 1.5 generations, and in betweens)
>> >>>against each other -- a divisive strategy that succeeds because of the
>> >>>economics of Necessity, in which Asian Americans are only too willing to
>> >>>sell each other out in order to survive. It is a strategy that pre-empts
>> >>>any possible alliances that Asian Americans might try to form, alliances
>> >>>that dominant whites find threatening.
>> >>>I remember a male WASP professor at Harvard (now at a different school)
>> >>>asking department majors to introduce ourselves and our reasons for
>> >>>majoring in East Asian Studies. One Asian student, recently immigrated,
>> >>>said he wanted to study his culture. I said I had a somewhat academic
>> >>>interest in Asia, rather than studying it as "my culture," since I was
>> >>>born in N.Y.C. and grew up here.
>> >>>The WASP male professor, perhaps sensing a smugness in my attitude,
>> >>>immediately said, "But isn't that what it is? _Your_ culture?" It was a
>> >>>harsh rebuke of my confidence in my American identity. My skin color
>> >>>meant, to him, that I would never be accepted as an American.
>> >>>
>> >>>Ann Lee
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>Vladimir Tikhonov,
>> >>Department of East European and Oriental Studies,
>> >>Faculty of Arts,
>> >>University of Oslo,
>> >>P.b. 1030, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.
>> >>Fax: 47-22854140; Tel: 47-22857118
>> >>Personal web page:
>> >>http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.h tml
>> >>Electronic classrooms: East Asian/Korean Society and Politics:
>> >> http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html
>> >> East Asian/Korean Religion and Philosophy:
>> >>
>> >>http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html
>> >>----------
>> >
>> >Vladimir Tikhonov,
>> >Department of East European and Oriental Studies,
>> >Faculty of Arts,
>> >University of Oslo,
>> >P.b. 1030, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.
>> >Fax: 47-22854140; Tel: 47-22857118
>> >Personal web page:
>> >http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.ht ml
>> >Electronic classrooms: East Asian/Korean Society and Politics:
>> > http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html
>> > East Asian/Korean Religion and Philosophy:
>> >
>>http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html
>> >
>> >----------
>
>Vladimir Tikhonov,
>Department of East European and Oriental Studies,
>Faculty of Arts,
>University of Oslo,
>P.b. 1030, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.
>Fax: 47-22854140; Tel: 47-22857118
>Personal web page:
>http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.ht ml
>Electronic classrooms: East Asian/Korean Society and Politics:
> http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html
> East Asian/Korean Religion and Philosophy:
>
>http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html
>
>----------
Vladimir Tikhonov,
Department of East European and Oriental Studies,
Faculty of Arts,
University of Oslo,
P.b. 1030, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.
Fax: 47-22854140; Tel: 47-22857118
Personal web page:
http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.htm l
Electronic classrooms: East Asian/Korean Society and Politics:
http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html
East Asian/Korean Religion and Philosophy:
http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html
----------
|
|
|
|
| Re: Asian Americans [message #6910 is a reply to message #6893] |
Wed, 22 October 2003 13:51 |
Ann Sung-hi Lee
Messages: 4
Registered: September 2003
|
Junior Member |
|
|
Dear Vladimir and Bill,
Thank you for the kindness of your reply.
I think what I am trying to articulate is a theoretical interrogation of my "position" as an Asian American scholar of Korea. If I as an Asian American criticize U.S. imperialism, without criticizing the U.S. on the matter of civil rights for Asian immigrants, this leaves the mythologic Center unquestioned.
I have noticed that Pak Chong-ae gave a paper at the tenth conference of the Hanguk yeoseong munhakhoe, entitled "Han'guk cheon kwa B'et'eunam cheon eseo yeoseong chakka eui tongweon yangsang kwa keu euieui." (the mobilization of women writers in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and its significance).
My grandfather, Yi Kwang-su, collaborated with the Japanese. I find myself identified with my grandfather's politics. Why try to have a voice at all? Not having an identity could be one way to live. In spite of expectations that I identify with my grandfather, I nevertheless want to know what I think.
Have I benefited from my grandfather's colonial collaboration? My father says he remembers his father as always being in prison. And that grandfather took him to see the governor of a province once to buy my father shoes. Grandfather was imprisoned, and collaborated. This is the complicated narrative that I see.
Ann
Ann Sung-hi Lee, Visiting Scholar
Asian Languages and Literature Department
University of Washington
http://home.myuw.net/asl/
----- Original Message -----
From: Vladimir Tikhonov
To: Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 9:48 AM
Subject: RE: [KS] can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies?
Dear Will, and others following this thread,
Thanks for the correction. In fact, I was not completely sure how the name of the Vietnamese author, which reads "Pan P'aeju" in Korean, should be put in Vietnamese. Interestingly, the book used to be included into some editions of Liang's collected works printed posthumously. As far as I could understand, the only academic work in South Korean historiography that analyses the influence of The Wollam wang guksa in some details, is Ch'oe KiyOng's paper, entitled "KugyOk Wollam wang guksa e kwanhan ilgoch'al", and printed in , Vol. 6, 1985 (reprinted in , Ilchogak, 1997). But, unfortunately, Ch'oe doesn't analyze this work in the wider context of the development of ideas of "anti-hegemonic solidarity" in Korea, although it seems to be only natural to remember, for example, wide interest about Chang ChiyOn-translated AegUp kUnsesa (Recent History of Egypt - printed by HwangsOng sinmun sa in 1905, with Pak Unsik's highly impassioned foreword) in this context. Inspired partly by Liang Qichao's philippics against the "new methods of ruining [others'] countries" devised by the Europeans, and partly by some currents in Japanese Pan-Asianism, this current of thought seems to leave a strong imprint in Korean intellectuals' consciousness - and eventually, some of the earlier readers of Phan Boi Chau and Liang Qichao became Communists and Anarchists in the 1920s, and converted "Asianism" into "anti-imperialist solidarity".
Yours,
Vladimir
At 15:41 30.09.2003 -0400, you wrote:
Vladimir,
One correction: The Wollam wang guksa (Viet nam vong quoc su) was not written
by Liang Qichao. He did write the dedication to it. The work (translated into
Korean in about 1905) was by the Vietnamese intellectual-activist Phan Boi
Chau.
Will Pore
>===== Original Message From Vladimir Tikhonov
=====
>Dear Ann,
>
>Frankly, the idiosyncratic interpretation of the minjung literature as
>"democratic" (in the current American sense of the world) looks to me
>biased not that much ethnically/racially as ideologically. What is
>omitted/sidelined is obvious anti-imperialist/socialist/"third
>world"-solidarist self-identification of many minjung authors. By the way,
>I sense really strong "dominant" bias in terming all the plethora of
>anti-systemic movements in contemporary South Korea either "nationalist" or
>"anti-American". "MinjokjuUi" was, for many of the proponents of the
>movement, as much "nationalism" as "third-worldism" - in the 1980s, they
>clandestinely read on Ho Chi Minh, and in the late 1990s, Che Gevara became
>a new star. That were exactly the heirs of the 1980s movement who started
>in the late 1990s the campaign of disclosure of the atrocities committed by
>Park Chong Hee army in South Vietnam - and this campaign was moved exactly
>by the passion for Asian/"third world" solidarity. In fact, this all goes
>back very deep, down to the times in the 1900s when the anti-colonial
>narrative on the demise of Vietnam (WOllam Mangguksa in Korean, by Liang
>Qichao and a Vietnamese anti-colonial activist) was the must-read among the
>"new intelligentsia". But I guess that this side of the minjung movement -
>the most dangerous for the US hegemony in the long run - was largely
>sidelined by some of the "mainstream" American narratives on the subject.
>
>With best greetings,
>
>Vladimir
>
>
>
>At 11:35 28.09.2003 -0700, you wrote:
>> Dear Vladimir,
>>
>>I will give an example of the relevance of the politics of race in Asian
>>studies.
>>When I, as an Asian American not born in Korea, discuss Korean minjung
>>nationalist literature, am I not using Western dominant narratives of
>>democratic revolution, and thereby serving the mythic, hegemonic American
>>ideology of "melting pot"? As Rey Chow notes, it is important to
>>recognize Koreans' lived experiences of the ideology of democracy, and
>>Koreans' perceptions and translations of that ideology. In the U.S.,
>>"certain ethnic groups, as a result of racism, will never be able to enact
>>in full "the script of "consent." (Wong, 1993:41): "With European
>>ethnics, there is enough cultural congruence with the Anglo mainstream,
>>and enough reality in the promised rewards of assimilation, to validate
>>the rhetoric of consensual nation-building and blunt the damage of
>>generational divisions. Asian Americans are socialized into embracing the
>>same expectations but are denied their full realization on a collective
>>basis." (Wong 1993: 43).
>>
>>Ann
>>
>>Citation:
>>Sau-ling Cynthia Wong, Reading Asian American Literature: From Necessity
>>to Extravagance (Princeton: Princeton Univerrsity Press, 1993).
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: Vladimir Tikhonov
>>To: Korean Studies Discussion List
>>Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 1:59 AM
>>Subject: Re: [KS] can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies?
>>
>>Dear colleagues,
>>
>>if what Ann Lee writes about the atmosphere of the "WASP domination" in
>>our field in the USA is true (as I have never been over there, it is hard
>>for me to assess the situation on my own), that I cannot help concluding
>>that, perhaps, old Soviet Union wasn't the worst of all possible worlds.
>>Several prominent ethnic Korean scholars won recognition in their
>>respective special fields (M.N.Pak - ancient history, G.F.Kim - North
>>Korean politics, Lim Su - folk sayings, etc.) as "dominant authorities",
>>so to say, and I really don't remember any talks about "tribe wars" along
>>ethnic lines among their students, so ethnically mixed as they were. I
>>don't think anybody really questioned - or would ever question - the
>>loyalty of the ethnic Korean "patriarchs" of Soviet/Russian Korean Studies
>>to Soviet/Russian culture or research traditions. Perhaps - I just guess -
>>it was old intelligentsia tradition of fighting against official
>>antisemitism/"patriotic" chauvinism in Tzarist Russia, in combination with
>>Tzarist/Soviet tradition of absorbing ethnically heterogeneous local
>>elites, that precluded any ethnic divisions in the Korean Studies field?
>>Anyway, I can only hope that the immunity to racialist taxonomies will
>>survive in Russia, despite all the efforts to the contrary on the part of
>>its today's rulers...
>>
>>Vladimir Tikhonov
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>At 15:28 25.09.2003 -0700, you wrote:
>>>Dear list,
>>>
>>>I have failed in my bid to be a cultural comprador.
>>>Collecting my unemployment checks, I have time to read what I want to read.
>>>I can't help asking myself whether or not Asian Americans can have a
>>>voice in Asian Studies.
>>>Orientalists remind us that only a native's "access" to Asian culture
>>>could possibly give an Asian any use value in the field. This results in
>>>pitting Asian Americans (issei, nisei, 1.5 generations, and in betweens)
>>>against each other -- a divisive strategy that succeeds because of the
>>>economics of Necessity, in which Asian Americans are only too willing to
>>>sell each other out in order to survive. It is a strategy that pre-empts
>>>any possible alliances that Asian Americans might try to form, alliances
>>>that dominant whites find threatening.
>>>I remember a male WASP professor at Harvard (now at a different school)
>>>asking department majors to introduce ourselves and our reasons for
>>>majoring in East Asian Studies. One Asian student, recently immigrated,
>>>said he wanted to study his culture. I said I had a somewhat academic
>>>interest in Asia, rather than studying it as "my culture," since I was
>>>born in N.Y.C. and grew up here.
>>>The WASP male professor, perhaps sensing a smugness in my attitude,
>>>immediately said, "But isn't that what it is? _Your_ culture?" It was a
>>>harsh rebuke of my confidence in my American identity. My skin color
>>>meant, to him, that I would never be accepted as an American.
>>>
>>>Ann Lee
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Vladimir Tikhonov,
>>Department of East European and Oriental Studies,
>>Faculty of Arts,
>>University of Oslo,
>>P.b. 1030, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.
>>Fax: 47-22854140; Tel: 47-22857118
>>Personal web page:
>>http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.h tml
>>Electronic classrooms: East Asian/Korean Society and Politics:
>> http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html
>> East Asian/Korean Religion and Philosophy:
>>
>>http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html
>>----------
>
>Vladimir Tikhonov,
>Department of East European and Oriental Studies,
>Faculty of Arts,
>University of Oslo,
>P.b. 1030, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.
>Fax: 47-22854140; Tel: 47-22857118
>Personal web page:
>http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.ht ml
>Electronic classrooms: East Asian/Korean Society and Politics:
> http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html
> East Asian/Korean Religion and Philosophy:
>
http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html
>
>----------
Vladimir Tikhonov,
Department of East European and Oriental Studies,
Faculty of Arts,
University of Oslo,
P.b. 1030, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.
Fax: 47-22854140; Tel: 47-22857118
Personal web page: http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.htm l
Electronic classrooms: East Asian/Korean Society and Politics:
http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html
East Asian/Korean Religion and Philosophy:
http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html
------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------
Vladimir Tikhonov,
Department of East European and Oriental Studies,
Faculty of Arts,
University of Oslo,
P.b. 1030, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.
Fax: 47-22854140; Tel: 47-22857118
Personal web page: http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.htm l
Electronic classrooms: East Asian/Korean Society and Politics:
http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html
East Asian/Korean Religion and Philosophy:
http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html
------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------
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