Instructors
Yumi Moon - Assistant Professor, Department of History

The history of the two Koreas began in 1945, when the United States and Soviet Union agreed to divide the country along the 38th parallel and to occupy North and South separately. This division had a great impact on Korea’s decolonization process and resulted in the outbreak of the Korean War. The war quickly developed into the first international war after World War II and completed the regime of the Cold War in East Asia. After the war the two Koreas took dramatically different historical paths, and the nation’s division is now comprehensive and internalized among the residents of the two Koreas. This system of the two Koreas survived the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s but is now entering a crucial historical stage toward its fundamental transformation or even its dissolution.

This course will examine major themes and scholarly works to understand the rise of the two Koreas and their subsequent historical developments. Themes will include the historical and ideological origins of the division, the impact of Japanese colonial rule, the Korean War, the ideas of key North and South Korean leaders, and the consolidation of the two different states into North and South after the Korean War.

The structure of this colloquium will be divided into three chronological periods: the colonial origins of the nation’s division (1910–45), the Korean War and the involvements of international powers (1945–53), and the consolidation of the two different states in the aftermath of the war (1953–).

This colloquium will also have one analytical focus: the reconsideration of Bruce Cuming’s seminal work, The Origins of the Korean War. Cumings provided a comprehensive and authoritative account of the origins of the war, its outbreak, and the factors involved in its escalation into the international war. He called the Korean War “a civil war” and criticized the United States foreign policy toward Korea between 1945 and 1950.  His thesis is based on the assumption that Korea in 1945 was “revolutionary.” We will revisit Cuming’s major arguments and examine scholarly debate that his work has generated for the past few decades. This will help us to explore a new paradigm and historical questions in order to understand the rise and consolidation of the two Koreas and the prospect of their reunification.

Level
Graduate and undergraduate