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Project Director

Boudewijn Walraven studied Japanese and Korean language and culture at Leiden University, where presently he is Professor of Korean Studies. He has also studied Korean history and cultural anthropology at Seoul National University. Most of his research concerns religious practice and cultural history. His current interests are the contributions of non-professional historians to historical discourse, imaginings of (national) community in Chos?n literature, and Buddhism of the late Chos?n period. He is also an editor of the Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies.

 

Deputy project directors

Remco Breuker studied Japanese and Korean language and cultures at Leiden University. After his graduation he studied Korean history at the Department of Korean History (Graduate School) at Seoul National University. Currently, he is working on a government-funded research project on Northeast Asian medieval history at Leiden University. His Ph.D. is on the formation of plural identities in medieval Korea, while his present research seeks to reconceptualize medieval Northeast Asian history. Although a premodern historian by training, his interests also include (contemporary) historiography, representations of identity, the question of modernity in premodern periods, landscape and history, cultures of forgery and contemporary Korean cinema. He is also co-editor of East Asian History.
Koen De Ceuster is a PhD in Japanese Studies (1994) from Leuven University (Belgium). He has been affiliated with Leiden University since 1995, where he lectures on modern Korean history. From 1986 until 1990, he was a research student at the Academy of Korean Studies. In his research, he has dealt with issues of history and identity, nationalism and nation building, colonialism and modernity and recently also with North Korean art theory and practice. His contribution to this project deals with national history and the politics of memory in contemporary Korea.

 

Post-doctoral scholar

Jung-Shim Lee studied German language and literature (BA) and received her MA in Korean Studies at Ewha Womans University. She also took courses of Germanistiek at Bonn University, Germany and studied philosophy and religion at Luzern University, Switzerland. At Leiden University, she has completed her Advanced Master’s Programme and PhD course. Through Buddhist authors in colonial Korea, her dissertation deals with how literature and religion created multilayered sociopolitical voices from colonial Korea beyond the conventional nationalist narrative. Her main research fields are modern Korean literature, gender politics, religions in modern Korea, literary representation of (post) colonial and (post/de) nationalist narratives and wartime literature. Her recent interest is writers as non-professional historians and the role of literature in reproduction of history and memory. Recently, she has worked as a committee member of KSGSC (Korean Studies Graduate Students Convention) in Europe.

 

PhD scholars

Jerôme de Wit received his M.A. degree in Korean Studies at Leiden University (1999-2005). During this period he spent one year at Yonsei University (2002-2003) to attend Korean Language Classes. After his graduation he did PhD course work at the Academy of Korean Studies of Sungkyunkwan University (2006-2009), while working as a full-time lecturer at the Department of Dutch Studies of Hanguk University of Foreign Studies (2006-2009).
His research interests are in modern Korean literature, Korean intellectual history, intellectuals’ attitudes towards and activities during war, (re-)imaginings in popular culture of the Korean war and literature concerning Korea’s industrialization and its effects on Korean identity.
Currently he is working on an a PhD dissertation concerning South and North Korean writer’s groups during the Korean War with the help of a scholarship from the History a s Social Process project. He will focus on writers’ attitudes towards war, the role they see for themselves during te war and how these two are visible in their works, organizations and activities during the Korean War.
Min-Kyung Yoon attended the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and graduated with a bachelor's degree in History.  Her undergraduate thesis focused on the roles and images of women as portrayed in the narrative literature of the Imjin War.  She also received a master's degree from Harvard University in the Regional Studies-East Asia program.  Her master's thesis dealt with Yi Kwang-Su’s novels, Muj?ng and Sarang.  She is currently a first year PhD student at Leiden University.  Her research focuses on the politics of culture in North Korea through an examination of literature, cinema, and art.  She is interested in the representations of history through cultural production in North Korea.