The Modern East Asia Research Centre organises and sponsors a wide range of activities for researchers, students, opinion leaders, professionals and the general public. These events (lecture series, workshops, conferences, roundtables), by established speakers or promising junior academics, enhance MEARC's commitment to interdisciplinary analysis by showcasing a diversity of voices both within and outside the East Asia region. Some events are by invitation only, but most are open to anyone who is interested.
If you wish to be informed about upcoming events, please sign up for the MEARC mailinglist.
8 February 2012
8 February lecture 'South Korean National Identity and Changing Perceptions on North Korea and Korean Unification'
South Korean national identity has witnessed substantial changes in recent years, driven in no small measure by changing perceptions of North Korea and the question of Korean unification. The main purpose of this lecture is to examine these changing perceptions and attitudes toward North Korea and Korean unification by analyzing and comparing public survey data on national identity conducted in 2005 and 2010 respectively.
The surveys show that, while the majority of Koreans maintain ambivalent perceptions on North Korea, negative feelings towards North Korea have increased markedly. Secondly, rather than identification with the North Korean people, the perception of North Korea as a separate county has increased. Consequently, public support for economic aid to North Korea has decreased markedly in recent years. With changing attitudes towards North Korea, skepticism towards Korean unification, particularly among younger generations, has been on the rise. Concern over the economic cost of unification is a particular concern in this respect, with a clear unwillingness to pay an extra tax for financing unification.
These findings have both theoretical and policy implications. On a theoretical level, changing perceptions of North Korea and Korean unification are a crucial component of a changing South Korean national identity. In terms of policy, the increasingly negative public attitude towards North Korea undermines the sustainability of an engagement policy towards North Korea. In view of the possibility of a sudden collapse of the North Korean regime, the lack of political leadership in preparing unification at a time when public skepticism about unification is on the increase is also worrisome.
Nae-Young Lee is a professor of Political Science Dept. at Korea University. Professor Lee is currently the Director of the Asiatic Research Institute at Korea University and the Director of Public Opinion Research Center at the East Asia Institute. His research interests are Korean politics, electoral politics, public opinion, and East Asian political economy. Professor Lee received his Ph.D. in Political Science from University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States. His previous positions include professor of School of International Studies at Kyunghee University, Research Fellow at the Sejong Institute, and Visiting Scholar of the Asia Pacific Research Center at Stanford University.
Details: 8 February, 11.00-13.00 in room 1.11 of Gravensteen, Pieterskerkhof 6, Leiden
Apart from annual lecture series with an eclectic mix op topics, MEARC also organises themed lecture series. Each lecture series is designed by one or more members of our research community:
2011
Japan’s Triple Disaster Revisited
On March 11th, 2011, the Northeast of the Japan’s main island Honshu was struck by the largest earthquake in Japan’s recent history, and one of the most powerful ever recorded. The quake was followed by a devastating tsunami that overwhelmed coastal defenses and brought unprecedented destruction to lives, property, and livelihoods. Smashing into a nuclear power plant complex at Fukushima, the tsunami also triggered the greatest crisis in the history of Japan’s nuclear power industry, bringing in its train a deepening sense of political, social, economic, and environmental crisis as its full effects unfolded—and continue to unfold.
Yet global media attention is a fickle quantity: The overwhelming degree to which the quake, the tsunami, the nuclear disaster, and its devastating impact dominated our front pages, televisions, and computer screens in the first weeks after March 11th has been matched by an equally impressive and speedy vanishing act in the weeks and months that have followed since. The end of rescue operations, the reduction in the immediate risk of another nuclear meltdown and the inevitable turn to the grueling, complex long-term challenges of rebuilding may have made Japan less exciting television. But for Japan’s society, politics, economy, and environment, the challenges remain no less profound than they were in March, and it is only now that the deeper impacts and significance of the earthquake, the tsunami, and the nuclear disaster are coming into clearer view.
To explore these deeper impacts and significances—and to bring Japan rightly back into the public eye in this critical time— the Leiden University Program in Japanese Studies, in cooperation with MEARC, is convening a public evening lecture series in the Autumn of 2011 entitled “Japan’s Triple Disaster Revisited,” with support from MEARC and Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS). The first of its three events will comprise a public roundtable discussion and Q&A session with local experts in the fields of contemporary Japanese society, economy, and politics, and nuclear energy. This will be followed by two lectures by visiting specialists who will focus on a particular aspect of contemporary Japanese life impacted by the triple disaster.
September 22, 7.00-9.00 p.m.
Japan's Triple Disaster: Six Months On (Public Roundtable)
Moderator: Dr. E. Mark
October 20, 7.00-9.00 p.m.
Rethinking Japanese Public Opinion and Security Under the DPJ
Speaker: Prof. P. Midford (Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology)
November 3, 7.00-9.00 p.m.
Washed Away: the Impact of the Japanese Tsunami on Life for Coastal Fisheries Households in Miyagi, Japan
Speaker: Dr. A. Delaney (Aalborg University)
Japan’s Triple Disaster Revisited
On March 11th, 2011, the Northeast of the Japan’s main island Honshu was struck by the largest earthquake in Japan’s recent history, and one of the most powerful ever recorded. The quake was followed by a devastating tsunami that overwhelmed coastal defenses and brought unprecedented destruction to lives, property, and livelihoods. Smashing into a nuclear power plant complex at Fukushima, the tsunami also triggered the greatest crisis in the history of Japan’s nuclear power industry, bringing in its train a deepening sense of political, social, economic, and environmental crisis as its full effects unfolded—and continue to unfold.
Yet global media attention is a fickle quantity: The overwhelming degree to which the quake, the tsunami, the nuclear disaster, and its devastating impact dominated our front pages, televisions, and computer screens in the first weeks after March 11th has been matched by an equally impressive and speedy vanishing act in the weeks and months that have followed since. The end of rescue operations, the reduction in the immediate risk of another nuclear meltdown and the inevitable turn to the grueling, complex long-term challenges of rebuilding may have made Japan less exciting television. But for Japan’s society, politics, economy, and environment, the challenges remain no less profound than they were in March, and it is only now that the deeper impacts and significance of the earthquake, the tsunami, and the nuclear disaster are coming into clearer view.
To explore these deeper impacts and significances—and to bring Japan rightly back into the public eye in this critical time— the Leiden University Program in Japanese Studies, in cooperation with MEARC, is convening a public evening lecture series in the Autumn of 2011 entitled “Japan’s Triple Disaster Revisited,” with support from MEARC and Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS). The first of its three events will comprise a public roundtable discussion and Q&A session with local experts in the fields of contemporary Japanese society, economy, and politics, and nuclear energy. This will be followed by two lectures by visiting specialists who will focus on a particular aspect of contemporary Japanese life impacted by the triple disaster.
September 22, 7.00-9.00 p.m.
Japan's Triple Disaster: Six Months On (Public Roundtable)
Moderator: Dr. E. Mark
October 20, 7.00-9.00 p.m.
Rethinking Japanese Public Opinion and Security Under the DPJ
Speaker: Prof. P. Midford (Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology)
November 3, 7.00-9.00 p.m.
Washed Away: the Impact of the Japanese Tsunami on Life for Coastal Fisheries Households in Miyagi, Japan
Speaker: Dr. A. Delaney (Aalborg University)
2010
Concept and Practice of Human Security in East Asia
Human security is an emerging paradigm for understanding global vulnerabilities. The concept was first advocated by the United Nations (United Nations Development Program) in 1994. Its proponents challenge the political realist-derived orthodoxy that employed a military-focused and state-centric approach. The presumption of this emerging paradigm is that the concerns of security ought to be the individual rather than the state, and people-centered rather than national. On this account, the concerns of “security” shifts the primary security referent from the state to the human being by focusing on freedom from want – comprising development issues, such as the provision of health care, education and employment, and freedom from fear – comprising protection issues, such as denoting liberation from political oppression and physical harm.
The Asian financial crisis of 1997-8, the SARS influenza of 2003, and the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, are among the numerous headline events that have refocused both public and private attention on the impact of manmade and natural disasters upon human communities. In East Asia, the Human Security paradigm has also encouraged a reassessment of a myriad of issues, including how to address chronic poverty, malnutrition, non-combatant death and injury in war, migration and human trafficking.
Since the concept’s inception in the mid-1990s, policy-makers, members of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), officials in international organizations and academics have engaged in a rigorous debate concerning Human Security and how it is or might be applied in the East Asian region. This debate has centered on a range of questions, such as whether states should focus on freedom from want or fear, which humans should be secured and under what conditions, what is the relationship between human security practice and theory, the connections between human security, national interest and national identity, what it means to be human and how security is defined?
The aim of the MEARC lecture series was to engage with these questions across various disciplines with the aim of mapping out the contours of the debates in East Asia on Human Security, as well as to explore future possibilities for academic research.
This lecture series concluded with an international conference held in June 2006.
An edited volume with papers presented at this conference is forthcoming (summer 2012 - edited by Dr. Lindsay Black and MEARC director Professor Chris Goto-Jones).
Concept and Practice of Human Security in East Asia
Human security is an emerging paradigm for understanding global vulnerabilities. The concept was first advocated by the United Nations (United Nations Development Program) in 1994. Its proponents challenge the political realist-derived orthodoxy that employed a military-focused and state-centric approach. The presumption of this emerging paradigm is that the concerns of security ought to be the individual rather than the state, and people-centered rather than national. On this account, the concerns of “security” shifts the primary security referent from the state to the human being by focusing on freedom from want – comprising development issues, such as the provision of health care, education and employment, and freedom from fear – comprising protection issues, such as denoting liberation from political oppression and physical harm.
The Asian financial crisis of 1997-8, the SARS influenza of 2003, and the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, are among the numerous headline events that have refocused both public and private attention on the impact of manmade and natural disasters upon human communities. In East Asia, the Human Security paradigm has also encouraged a reassessment of a myriad of issues, including how to address chronic poverty, malnutrition, non-combatant death and injury in war, migration and human trafficking.
Since the concept’s inception in the mid-1990s, policy-makers, members of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), officials in international organizations and academics have engaged in a rigorous debate concerning Human Security and how it is or might be applied in the East Asian region. This debate has centered on a range of questions, such as whether states should focus on freedom from want or fear, which humans should be secured and under what conditions, what is the relationship between human security practice and theory, the connections between human security, national interest and national identity, what it means to be human and how security is defined?
The aim of the MEARC lecture series was to engage with these questions across various disciplines with the aim of mapping out the contours of the debates in East Asia on Human Security, as well as to explore future possibilities for academic research.
This lecture series concluded with an international conference held in June 2006.
An edited volume with papers presented at this conference is forthcoming (summer 2012 - edited by Dr. Lindsay Black and MEARC director Professor Chris Goto-Jones).
2009
Cultural Sphere of Nationalism in East Asia
Entering the 21st century, the spectre of nationalism seems to be still haunting East Asia. To many Western observers, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were the result of a wave of Chinese nationalism started off in the early 1990s, which has sought a greater international status for China. Yet, just as China prepared for its moment of national glory, various secessionist movements in China, highlighted particularly by the events in Tibet that year, cast a harsh light on China. More recently, the ethnic violence between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese that took place in Xinjiang in July 2009 left more than 180 people dead and thousands injured. This ethnic unrest became another magnet for Western criticism of China’s record on human rights. This sort of criticism from the West has, in turn, stirred up a ground-swell of nationalist indignation that found a place to grow in cyberspace. A best-selling new book released this March in China entitled ‘Unhappy China’, which excoriates the West and calls for China to be more assertive, also demonstrates tension between China and the West by further fueling nationalist sentiments.
Meanwhile, coupled with the rise of Chinese nationalism, the revival of nationalistic sentiment in other areas of East Asia in the last decade is equally evident. In Japan, post-World War II pacifism has been constantly challenged by a more assertive, patriotic attitude. The new nationalist mood is not only found in the political but also in the cultural sphere. Popular magazines such as ‘Sapio’, or manga series such as ‘The 100 Crimes of China’, or ‘Why We Should Hate South Korea’, often use provocative language to advocate a more militaristic Japan, to legitimate the Pacific War, and to cast racist aspersions on neighbouring countries. In Korea, assertive nationalism is also readily apparent, particularly in the Korean pop culture boom that has been sweeping the East Asian media markets. Since the late 1990s, driven by Korean media industries and the government, Korean TV dramas and movies have been exported to East Asian countries, and have caught the eyes of regional audiences. This surge of cultural exports, which is often referred to as the ‘Korean Wave’, reflects not only a conventional sense of cultural nationalism, but also a commercialized and commodified nationalism.
There is certainly a new wave of nationalism on the rise in East Asia, with various characteristics attached to it in different contexts; and the major site of this nationalist wave is in the cultural sphere, broadly defined. So how might we explain these phenomena? To what extent, and through which media or platforms, are nationalistic sentiments disseminated in East Asian societies, both individually and collaboratively? What are the sources and characteristics of this new wave of nationalism in East Asia? Why is nationalism or ‘national identity’ in East Asia still an important matter? To what extent can current theories of nationalism provide adequate conceptual frameworks to analyse and comprehend the complexities of East Asian nationalisms and their related issues? What are the limitations of theories of nationalism and how do contemporary issues highlight these theoretical deficiencies? Are current methodologies sufficient to research contemporary East Asian nationalisms?
This MEARC lecture series (Autumn 2009- Spring 10) explored the multiple dimensions and upshots of nationalism in East Asia from a cultural angle. The notion of ‘cultural governance’, proposed by Michael Shapiro, is instructive here in contemplating the aforementioned questions. As Shapiro noted, cultural governance involves support for diverse genres of expression to constitute and legitimise practices of sovereignty, while preventing those representations that challenge sovereignty. In this aspect, cultural governance is a set of practices of cultural representation – involving the state, though not fully dominated by the state – in which the struggle for the state’s identity is located. Given the nature of the theme, interdisciplinary – i.e. political, sociological, cultural, and historical – analysis was seen as the most appropriate.
An edited volume with papers presented in this series is forthcoming (summer 2012 - edited by Dr. Yih-jye Hwang, Dr. Florian Schneider and Prof. William Callahan).
Cultural Sphere of Nationalism in East Asia
Entering the 21st century, the spectre of nationalism seems to be still haunting East Asia. To many Western observers, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were the result of a wave of Chinese nationalism started off in the early 1990s, which has sought a greater international status for China. Yet, just as China prepared for its moment of national glory, various secessionist movements in China, highlighted particularly by the events in Tibet that year, cast a harsh light on China. More recently, the ethnic violence between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese that took place in Xinjiang in July 2009 left more than 180 people dead and thousands injured. This ethnic unrest became another magnet for Western criticism of China’s record on human rights. This sort of criticism from the West has, in turn, stirred up a ground-swell of nationalist indignation that found a place to grow in cyberspace. A best-selling new book released this March in China entitled ‘Unhappy China’, which excoriates the West and calls for China to be more assertive, also demonstrates tension between China and the West by further fueling nationalist sentiments.
Meanwhile, coupled with the rise of Chinese nationalism, the revival of nationalistic sentiment in other areas of East Asia in the last decade is equally evident. In Japan, post-World War II pacifism has been constantly challenged by a more assertive, patriotic attitude. The new nationalist mood is not only found in the political but also in the cultural sphere. Popular magazines such as ‘Sapio’, or manga series such as ‘The 100 Crimes of China’, or ‘Why We Should Hate South Korea’, often use provocative language to advocate a more militaristic Japan, to legitimate the Pacific War, and to cast racist aspersions on neighbouring countries. In Korea, assertive nationalism is also readily apparent, particularly in the Korean pop culture boom that has been sweeping the East Asian media markets. Since the late 1990s, driven by Korean media industries and the government, Korean TV dramas and movies have been exported to East Asian countries, and have caught the eyes of regional audiences. This surge of cultural exports, which is often referred to as the ‘Korean Wave’, reflects not only a conventional sense of cultural nationalism, but also a commercialized and commodified nationalism.
There is certainly a new wave of nationalism on the rise in East Asia, with various characteristics attached to it in different contexts; and the major site of this nationalist wave is in the cultural sphere, broadly defined. So how might we explain these phenomena? To what extent, and through which media or platforms, are nationalistic sentiments disseminated in East Asian societies, both individually and collaboratively? What are the sources and characteristics of this new wave of nationalism in East Asia? Why is nationalism or ‘national identity’ in East Asia still an important matter? To what extent can current theories of nationalism provide adequate conceptual frameworks to analyse and comprehend the complexities of East Asian nationalisms and their related issues? What are the limitations of theories of nationalism and how do contemporary issues highlight these theoretical deficiencies? Are current methodologies sufficient to research contemporary East Asian nationalisms?
This MEARC lecture series (Autumn 2009- Spring 10) explored the multiple dimensions and upshots of nationalism in East Asia from a cultural angle. The notion of ‘cultural governance’, proposed by Michael Shapiro, is instructive here in contemplating the aforementioned questions. As Shapiro noted, cultural governance involves support for diverse genres of expression to constitute and legitimise practices of sovereignty, while preventing those representations that challenge sovereignty. In this aspect, cultural governance is a set of practices of cultural representation – involving the state, though not fully dominated by the state – in which the struggle for the state’s identity is located. Given the nature of the theme, interdisciplinary – i.e. political, sociological, cultural, and historical – analysis was seen as the most appropriate.
An edited volume with papers presented in this series is forthcoming (summer 2012 - edited by Dr. Yih-jye Hwang, Dr. Florian Schneider and Prof. William Callahan).
2008
Militarism in East Asia
In 2008, MEARC organised a series of lectures around the theme of ‘Militarism
in East Asia’. Militarism is an important keyword in the study of modern East Asia. In form of political ideologies and regimes, it played a central role in East Asian history during the first half of the twentieth century, but its consequences stretch far beyond the Asia-Pacific war and continue to influence contemporary East Asian societies as well.
This lecture series explored the multiple dimensions and upshots of militarism in East Asia from an interdisciplinary angle.
The lecture series started with Vladimir Tikhonov’s (16 September 2008) exploration of military service in Korea since 1943. Focusing on Japan, Takashi Fujitani’s work (28 October 2008) discussed Japanese militarism, colonialism and war through the theme of history and memory. Turning our
attention to the present, Caroline Rose’s lecture (11 November 2008) explored nationalism in the context of Sino-Japanese relations and the participation of the Japanese Self Defense Forces in peace keeping operations since the end of the Cold War. Extending
the topic to the everyday level, Sabine Frühstück (2 December 2008) ended this special lecture series by examining the organisation and operation of the Japanese Self-Defense Force – a military without a mandate to go to war.
This lecture series was made possible by the generous support of the Isaac Alfred Ailion Foundation.
Militarism in East Asia
In 2008, MEARC organised a series of lectures around the theme of ‘Militarism
in East Asia’. Militarism is an important keyword in the study of modern East Asia. In form of political ideologies and regimes, it played a central role in East Asian history during the first half of the twentieth century, but its consequences stretch far beyond the Asia-Pacific war and continue to influence contemporary East Asian societies as well.
This lecture series explored the multiple dimensions and upshots of militarism in East Asia from an interdisciplinary angle.
The lecture series started with Vladimir Tikhonov’s (16 September 2008) exploration of military service in Korea since 1943. Focusing on Japan, Takashi Fujitani’s work (28 October 2008) discussed Japanese militarism, colonialism and war through the theme of history and memory. Turning our
attention to the present, Caroline Rose’s lecture (11 November 2008) explored nationalism in the context of Sino-Japanese relations and the participation of the Japanese Self Defense Forces in peace keeping operations since the end of the Cold War. Extending
the topic to the everyday level, Sabine Frühstück (2 December 2008) ended this special lecture series by examining the organisation and operation of the Japanese Self-Defense Force – a military without a mandate to go to war.
This lecture series was made possible by the generous support of the Isaac Alfred Ailion Foundation.
