KORA398J

This is a Big Ten Academic Alliance Course-Share course. The instructor, Prof. Juhn Ahn, is at the University of Michigan. UMD students enroll and attend the class at UMD. This course examines a number of key controversies in modern and contemporary Korea (South and North). Through this examination this course will seek to provide a more critical understanding of the issues that drive the political economy and culture of Korea. Among other things, this course will examine the issue of comfort women, Park Chung-hee's authoritarian-developmentalist regime, the economic influence of chaebolconglomerates like Samsung, Kwangju 5.18 and democratization, theculture of consumption and commodification in contemporary Korea, horrors of the Korean War, gender and class struggle, environmental policy in Korea, globalization and the Korean Wave (Hallyu), conflict with North Korea and China, Korea and U.S. hegemony, the impact of the IMF or Asian financial crisis, the Sewol tragedy, youth unemployment, the history textbook controversy, Choi Soon-sil, and mokpang.