Description: "Among the scholars who have built the field of Korean studies are former Peace Corps volunteers who served in South Korea in the 1960s and 1970s before pursuing advanced degrees in anthropology, history, and literature. These scholars, who formed the core of the second generation of Korean Studies scholars in the US, reflect in this volume on their personal experience of serving during Korea's period of military dictatorship, on issues of gender and the Peace Corps experience, and on how random assignment to Korea sparked fascination and led to lifelong professional involvement with the country. Two chapters by Korean studies scholars who were not Peace Corps volunteers (one American and one Korean) assess how Peace Corps volunteers have influenced development of the field"--
Brief description: Seung-kyung Kim is Korea Foundation professor and director of the Institute for Korean Studies at Indiana University. She is the author of The Korean Women's Movement and the State: Bargaining for Change (Routledge, 2014) and Class Struggle or Family Struggle?: Lives of Women Factory Workers in South Korea (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Review Quotes:
"The book makes for an interesting read in many ways--reflections on transcultural living and how that experience led to career changes and changes in worldview. However, there is one final way in which this book is interesting and useful. It is a collection of essays which are a form of "auto-ethnography." These observations of cultural adjustment, and American understanding of Korea during the 1960s to the 1980s are an important source of information for future scholars examining American attitudes to East Asia at the end of the twentieth century."
-- "European Journal of Korean Studies"