From a European perspective, all “lands” were either European territories or their potential colonies. In contrast, the “sea” remained a free space outside all territorial orders and was open to all countries. In the 19th century, Europe created new spaces in Asian countries by forcing them to agree to a treaty in European terms. In the case of Korea, the spatial structure under the treaty regime resembled concentric circles centered around the “foreign settlement,” an “mixed residence zone within a distance of ten miles from the foreign settlement,” and then the “interior.”
This structure was a kind of spatial representation of the view as to the “interior,” which lay beyond the boundary of the foreign settlement, and a plan of spatial division for the “land,” the Korean peninsula. The process of colonization of Korea was also a process of dismantling this structure. Until the annexation of Korea in 1910, the Korean peninsula became a huge “sea,” and it was upon the “sea” that a new order of colonial Korea named the “exterior” of the Japanese archipelago began to develop.
Date & Time:
Thursday, August 22, 2024 at 10:00am – 12:00pm
Location:
Room 604, Asian Centre
1871 West Mall, Vancouver, BC
This event is free and open to the public. No registration required. The seminar will be presented in Korean and English.
Speaker
Dr. Jun-hyung Park is a Professor at University of Seoul, and he has earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Korean history from Seoul National University in Korea. He obtained a Ph.D. degree in Asian history from Waseda University in Japan. Before joining University of Seoul, he was a faculty member at Center for Korean Studies of Inha University in Korea. His research involves foreign settlements in East Asia in the late 19th century using genealogical methods.
