Course overview

Historical memory issues divide Japan and Korea (South and North) today. This course will help students explore the long history of relations between the two countries from the perspective of social and cultural interactions. The aim of this course is not to resolve these issues or compel you toward consensus on a single historical interpretation. Instead, the course will help you understand the issues within local contexts and provide the tools to discuss them in the language of historians.

In the spring seminar, we will discuss readings in Korean and Japanese history and collectively draft sections for a guidebook to sites that connect the two. Sessions will follow a chronology from the 16th century to the present. Topics will include the Imjin War, early modern diplomatic and trade relations, Japanese colonization of Korea, Korean workers in imperial Japan, wartime mobilization, post-imperial migration between Japan and the two Koreas and contemporary connections, including youth culture, J-pop and K-pop. The seminar will also include a discussion of the social issues involved in tourism itself, particularly the issue of “dark tourism,” which will be one focus of the trip.

After the end of the semester in May, we will travel together for 14-15 days to several sites in South Korea and Japan, exploring the rich history of centuries of cultural interaction and the complex politics of history in East Asia today. Departing wholly from the usual tourist itinerary, the group will search for surviving traces of past events linking the two countries, including legacies in present-day life as well as markers, monuments and museums. We will also meet with Korean and Japanese faculty and students to talk about historical memory and the student’s own experiences. Based on fieldwork during the trip, we will flesh out the guidebook.

Eligibility

Sophomores, juniors, seniors (first year applicants may be considered when necessary).

The course and trip have no prerequisites, but a background in history or Asian studies is a plus. We seek students with a serious interest in Japan and Korea who are prepared to do demanding fieldwork and collaborate on writing a guidebook during the spring and the start of the summer term. Knowledge of Korean or Japanese language is useful but not required.

Please note that the travel dates will overlap with GU commencement, i.e., participation in the course means missing graduation.

If the class is over-subscribed, priority will be given to eligible SFS upperclassmen students with some knowledge of the subject matter and no prior C-Lab experience.

Itinerary highlights

During May 2025, the class visited Seoul; Mokpo; Gyeongju; Pusan; Shimonoseki; Hiroshima; Kyoto; Nara; Tokyo. Details for C-Lab 2026 will be finalized in the fall of 2025.

Professor information

Christine Kim is Professor of Teaching in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. A historian of modern Korea, she teaches courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels on subjects ranging from comparative colonialism to Korea-Japan relations, historical film and the Pacific world. Her research and writing focus on national identity, material culture and political movements. The King Is Dead (in prep.) explores how colonization and modernization influenced Korean policy and identity during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She is also engaged in a study examining cultural heritage and arts management in Korea in the twentieth century. Kim is the recipient of numerous fellowships, including ones from the U.S. Department of Education (Fulbright-Hays), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Korea Foundation, the Academy of Korean Studies and the East-West Center.

Jordan Sand is Professor of Japanese History at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He teaches modern Japanese history and other topics in East Asian history, urban history and the world history of food. He has a doctorate in history from Columbia University and a master’s degree in architecture history from the University of Tokyo. His research and writing have focused on architecture, urbanism, material culture and the history of everyday life. House and Home in Modern Japan (Harvard, 2004) explores how Westernizing reformers reinvented Japanese domestic space and family life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects (University of California Press, 2013), analyzes problems of history and memory in the postindustrial city. Teikoku Nihon no seikatsu kūkan (Iwanami Shoten, 2015) examines colonialism in the Asia-Pacific through the lens of material culture, bodily comportment and urban space. He has also written on the comparative history of urban fires and firefighting, the history of Japanese food (including sushi, miso, and MSG) and topics in the study of heritage and museums.