I traveled to South Korea to acquire and read materials relating to my Master’s Thesis about the relationship between historiography and political ideology in contemporary South Korea. My plans for conducting research this summer were to travel to various libraries, museums, and research institutes to find publications on Korean history and to examine state narratives about Korea’s past.
With regards to academic historiographies, I visited libraries and bookstores in Seoul. I found core works of leftist and New Right historical viewpoints: Haebang chŏnhusa ŭi insik (An Understanding of Pre- and Post-liberation History), the preeminent work of modern history from a leftist perspective, and Haebang chŏnhusa ŭi chaeinsik (A Reexamination of Pre- and Post-liberation History), the recent right-wing reaction to the Insik series. I also visited the Nakseongdae Economic Research Institute, as scholars affiliated with Nakseongdae have been instrumental in providing the evidence base for a postnationalist reading of modern Korean history. There I was able to discover more works by Rhee Young-hoon and Kim Nak-nyeon that I believe will be central to my thesis. I then went to the Institute for Korean Historical Studies (Yŏksa munje yŏnguso) to see if I could browse their collections, but discovered that most of the journal articles that affiliated scholars publish are actually available online for download. The Institute’s publications look at Korean history from a “critical” perspective, which usually connotes a more leftist interpretation. Finally, I visited the National Library of Korea and discovered many other recent works on Korean historiography and political ideology that are potential sources for the thesis.
For state narratives, I relied on military perspectives and museums. I inquired as to whether I could access or acquire military moral education materials, but the response from the Ministry of National Defense (MND) was that moral education publications are for internal use only (i.e., for consumption by soldiers) and are not accessible to the public. However, articles in the military newspaper Kookbang Ilbo, which are accessible via the Internet, were open for use. Thus, although I was unable to utilize the various publications of the MND, I was able to use Kookbang Ilbo articles as the basis for sections of the thesis devoted to military ideology.
On the whole, I believe it was a productive trip, and I am sure to use most of the materials I found to complete my thesis.