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New Korean area studies course offered for Fall semester 2014

March 26, 2014

New Korean area studies course offered for Fall semester 2014

As part of a newly-created effort to build an e-class system of shared courses with Korean content among a number of Midwestern schools, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) with funding from the Korea Foundation, will offer a series of area studies courses on a variety of Korean topics. These course offerings will have small enrollments, will be simulcast among 3 universities, and will make extensive use of internet-based technologies. The most recent course in this series will be Korean 4194: "Cultures of the Cold War in Korea." This course will be offered Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:15 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. (EST), location TBA. The course will be taught by Travis Workman, professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Minnesota. To read more about Dr. Workman, click here
 
The course will analyze the Cold War not only as a geopolitical event, but also as a historical period marked by specific cultural and artistic forms. Focus will be given to the Korean peninsula, looking closely at the literary and film cultures of both South Korea and North Korea. Discussions will cover how the global conflict between U.S.-centered and Soviet-centered societies affected the politics, culture, and geography of Korea between 1945 and 1989, treating the division of Korea as an exemplary case extending from the origins of the Cold War to the present. The Cold War divide will be examined to compare the culture and politics of the South and the North through various cultural forms, including anti-communist and socialist realist films, biography and autobiography, fiction, and political discourse. The primary purpose is to be able to analyze post-1945 Korean cultures as both local forms and as significant parts of the global context of the Cold War era.