Now and then
I joined the Division earlier this year (2006) to undertake a research Ph.D in Korean intellectual history. Before coming to ANU I had spent several years studying at the University of Tokyo in their Division of Korean Studies, specialising in pre-modern Korean philosophy. Before that I had completed my Masters (in Korean) at Seoul National University in the Department of Religious Studies and I obtained my Bachelor of Asian Studies (Korean Studies) with Honours from the Faculty of Asian Studies at the Australian National University in 1998.
Research interests
My research interests focus primarily on religious and intellectual history in Korea. For my honours thesis I wrote on the development of the personality cult of Kim Il-sung as found in a discourse analysis of domestic ideology. I wrote my thesis under the supervision of North Korean specialist Dr. Andrei Lankov. My thesis was titled, From Comrade Kim to Fatherly Leader: A Representative Analysis of the Accumulation of the Power of Kim Il-sŏng in North Korean Newspaper Editorials from 1956 to 1976 and I submitted it in 1998.
In 1999 I was granted a Korean Government Scholarship to study a Masters degree. After a period of language training at Seoul National University (SNU), I entered the regular graduate school in the Department of Religious Studies under the supervision of Dr. Woncheol Yun (À±¿øö),a specialist in Korean Buddhism. While at SNU I took a broad range of classes within the Department covering Buddhism, Confucianism, Korean religions, religious phenomenology and the sociology of religion. Outside of these I also took classes in the Department of Korean History and Department of East Asian Philosophy. For my thesis I decided to write on 7th century Korean monk Wŏnhyo (êªüû, 617-686). I examined the commentaries he wrote on a famous Buddhist treatise called, Treatise on Awakening Mahayana Faith (大ã«ÑÃãáÖå). In this study I looked at his understandings and interpretation of the Three Greatness (ß²大: Essence (ô÷), Function (éÄ) and Attributes (ßÓ)), a hermeneutical framework used for interpreting reality and orientating soteriology. While I wrote and submitted my thesis in Korean, titled ¿øÈ¿ ¡º大ã«ÑÃãáÖåáÂ-ܬÑÀ¡»ÀÇ ß²大 ËÈÒ·¿¡ ´ëÇÑ ¿¬±¸, I presented some of my findings in English at the first Korean Graduate Studies Conference during Asia and the Pacific Week at ANU in 2004. The paper I delivered was titled, “Wŏnhyo's Understanding of the Three Greatness in the Treatise on Awakening Mahayana Faith.”
I finished my Masters thesis in 2003 while in Toyko as a research student on the Mombusho Program. In the same year I took the Ph.D entrance exams for the University of Tokyo and in the following year started taking coursework. Since there were no specialists on Korean Buddhism I decided to capitalise on the knowledge around me and switched to Confucianism. It was during this time that I started to look increasingly into Confucianism in Korea and eventually identified the topic I would look at for my Ph.D. I decided to look at a 14th century Korean Confucian scholar/bureaucrat Yangch'ŏn Kwŏn Kŭn (åÕô¹ ÏíÐÎ, 1352-1409) and his writings on Confucianism. The reason why Kwŏn Kŭn caught my attention was that he was lived and wrote during fascinating point of time in Korean history. His life coincides with the dynastic and ideological transition from the Koryŏ period to the Chosŏn, namely from a Buddhist state to a neo-Confucian based state. Furthermore, Kwŏn's writings on Confucianism represent some of the earliest extant materials available on Confucianism in Korea and hence are a valuable window into Confucianism of his time. For my research I am focusing on his life and thoughts on Confucianism, as found in his primer on Confucianism, the Diagrammatic Explanations for Beginning Students (ìýùÊÓñàã), and his other writings.
While at the University of Tokyo I began collecting materials on Kwŏn, his writings and the time in which he lived. I also started reading his works and I presented two papers on my findings. The first paper I presented, “Preliminary Investigations into Kwŏn Kŭn’s Iphaktosŏl”, was at the second Korean Graduate Studies Conference during Asia and the Pacific Week at ANU in early 2005 and I was awarded first place for my paper. The second paper I presented was “Yang Ch’on Kwŏn Kŭn’s Understanding of the Book of Changes” at the Korean Studies Association of Australasia (KSAA) conference at Auckland University in mid 2005.
Towards the end of 2005 I had completed close to two years of coursework at University of Tokyo, but I decided that in order to be with my wife, who was studying at ANU, and also to avoid having to write yet another thesis in yet another language (this time Japanese), that I would return to ANU to write my thesis and finish my degree. So I withdrew from the University of Tokyo and applied for ANU. I was accepted in early 2006 and retuned to Australia after having lived abroad for close to seven years. While only a handful of months have passed since returning and starting here at ANU, I am already making good progress with my work. It is without a doubt that I am only able to do what I am doing now thanks to the support I have had along the way from my friends and teachers from ANU, SNU and UT. They have been a constant source of support, guidance and friendship, for which I am eternally grateful.