As part of an effort to build a system of shared courses with Korean content among a number of Midwestern schools, the institutional members of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), with funding from the Korea Foundation and coordination from the University of Michigan, offer a series of area studies courses on a variety of Korean topics. These course offerings have small enrollments, are simulcast among multiple universities, and make extensive use of internet-based technologies. The East Asian Studies Center and Institute for Korean Studies coordinate and support the offering of these courses at The Ohio State University. In Autumn 2016, OSU will participate in the following two courses:

Korean 5256: "Making Places in Seoul: History of Urbanism and Development"
Wednesday & Friday, 3:55 - 5:15 p.m. EST
Taught by Dr. Pil Ho Kim at The Ohio State University and shared via videoconference technology with the University of Michigan and the University of Maryland

Charcterized by an ever-increasing population, rampant pollution and jam-packed traffic, Seoul has been regarded as a stereotypical postcolonial East Asian megalopolis. Despite the newly found status as a "second-tier" global city, it has not entirely wiped away the chaotic, ugly and unattractive image of the old for residents and visitors alike. Lately, however, small yet meaningful changes are emerging in Seoul. With little or no emotional attachment to the grand, flashy urban monuments the national and the city governments have built, young artists and creative cultural entrepreneurs move around different places in the city looking for meanings, aesthetics and feelings. Rundown buildings and crooked alleyways are rediscovered and rehabilitated. Often deplored as 'gentrification,' the ongoing urban changes in Seoul prove to be much more significant and complex than what they seem at the first blush. Mainly focusing on five districts in Seoul (Jongno, Gangnam, Dongdaemun, Yongsan, and Mapo), this course will explore how they have come to represent different facets of Seoul's urban culture in the past as well as the present. We will see the birth of modern life going back to the colonial period, the reconstruction of the city from the utter destruction of the Korean War, the breakneck speed of urban development in the era of rapid economic growth, and the rise of the new urbanism around the beginning of the new millenium.

History 3600; Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies 3320: "Gender and Class in Contemporary South Korea"
Tuesday & Thursday, 4:00 - 5:00 p.m. EST
Taught by Dr. Seung-Kyung Kim at Indiana University and shared via videoconference technology with The Ohio State University and Pennsylvania State University

This interdisciplinary course will explore important issues of gender and class in South Korea through empirical, fictional and theoretical readings that deal with the issue. This course will approach gender and class not as descriptive but as analytic categories in order to understand how these intersecting categories have shaped power relations in Korean society. It will also incorporate a chronological perspective in its thematic clusters of reading: the readings will capture some of the insights that emerged from conversations and debates about how to understand gender and class in a variety of social-historical locations throughout the twentieth century.

Students may register for the courses via Buckeyelink. Contact Prof. Mitch Lerner, director of the Institute for Korean Studies, at lerner.26@osu.edu with any questions.