Traditional Korea and the Human Experience

Catalog description

This course provides a survey of Chosŏn Korea (1392-1910), focusing on the insights this period and place offer us into fundamental problems that have engaged societies throughout history, including those of our present time. Through translated primary-source readings, images, and objects, we will explore topics such as public duties and private desires, exclusion and belonging, the pursuit of power and wealth, legal justice, gender and class relations, the politics of language and writing, and ecological vulnerability and resilience. Students will be invited to contribute comparative perspectives that draw on their knowledge of other societies and times; they will also assess contemporary dramatizations of this period with the historical understanding they will develop throughout the course. On completion, students will gain an overview of politics, society, and culture in traditional Korea that will serve as the foundation for their further study of modern Korean history and contemporary affairs. No prior knowledge of Korea or the Korean language is required.