Lecturer in Korean Language and Culture

Lecturer in Korean Language and Culture

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Application deadline: August 31, 2021

Date of posting:  July 20, 2021

The University of British Columbia, Vancouver Campus, invites applications for a full-time Lecturer position in Korean Language and Culture, for two years with a possible renewal/extension, commencing January 1, 2022. In accordance with the Collective Agreement between UBC and the UBC Faculty Association According to UBC Collective Agreement, lecturer positions at UBC are appointments without review (i.e. non-tenure track), renewable for successive terms subject to availability of funds and demonstration of excellence in teaching and service. This position will entail a probationary first year. 

 We seek an exceptional teacher of Korean Language courses at all levels with a track record of employing innovative pedagogies, such as online teaching and distance learning, community-based learning, development of upper-level courses targeted at heritage speakers of Korean, and curriculum design in the area of Korean Studies-related Content-Based Instruction. The workload for these positions includes teaching plus service. The full-time teaching load for a Lecturer is 24 credits (eight 3-credit equivalent courses) per year. Courses will range from first- to fourth-year undergraduate courses and the bulk of the annual teaching load will be courses in Korean Language for both heritage and non-heritage learners. 

Requirements include: native or near-native fluency in both Korean and English; a Ph.D or equivalent degree in Korean Linguistics or Teaching Korean as a Second/Foreign Language, or a closely related field; evidence of excellent and extensive teaching experience in all levels of Korean courses at the post-secondary level in North America; experience organizing the preparation of teaching and testing materials; experience with supervision and/or training of new teachers or TAs; experience organizing co- and extra-curricular cultural activities; experience with student placement; evidence of training and a strong background in teaching innovation, such as computer-assisted teaching, community-based learning, Content Based Instruction, and curriculum development; a strong track record of full participation in team work and program affairs; and evidence of keeping abreast with recent developments in the field and in the development of teaching materials. A commitment to teaching upper-level courses for heritage speakers of Korean and experience with teaching higher-level topic-specific Korean language courses will be an asset. The successful candidates will be expected to maintain an excellent record of teaching, active engagement in professional development and team-based curriculum design/development of teaching materials, perform instructional responsibilities in coordination with other instructors in parallel sections and other levels, as well as fully participate in program affairs and service. Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. These positions are subject to final budgetary approval. 

 The application dossier should include an application letter, curriculum vitae, statement of teaching philosophy, sample teaching videos for two different levels, lesson plans for each of the lessons shown in the sample teaching videos, and other evidence of teaching effectiveness. It should include a statement about the applicant’s experience working with a diverse student body and contributions or potential contributions to creating/advancing a culture of equity and inclusion. Applicants should also provide the names and contact information for three referees who could provide confidential letters of recommendation. Applicants are required to upload their teaching demos to Youtube as unlisted public videos and to send the links as part of their application submission. All application materials should be submitted online at http://asia.ubc.ca/careers. The deadline for receipt of application materials is August 31, 2021. 

Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. An open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. We encourage applications from members of groups that have been marginalized on any grounds enumerated under the B.C. Human Rights Code, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, disability, political belief, religion, marital or family status, age, and/or status as a First Nation, Métis, Inuit, or Indigenous person. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority. For information about the Department, please visit www.asia.ubc.ca. 

Given the uncertainty caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic, applicants must be prepared to conduct interviews remotely if circumstances require. A successful applicant may be asked to consider an offer containing a deadline without having been able to make an in-person visit to campus if travel and other restrictions are still in place. 

An “Ise monogatari” Reader: Contexts and Receptions co-edited by Joshua S. Mostow and Kurtis Hanlon (2021)

Publication title: An “Ise monogatari” Reader: Contexts and Receptions

Publication year: 2021

Author: Co-edited by Joshua S. Mostow, Kurtis Hanlon and Yamamoto Tokurō

About the book

An “Ise monogatari” Reader is the first collection of essays in English on The Ise Stories, a canonical literary text ranked beside The Tale of Genji. Eleven scholars (Aoki Shizuko, Fujihara Mika, Fujishima Aya, Gotō Shōko, Imanishi Yūichirō, Susan Blakeley Klein, Laura Moretti, Joshua S. Mostow, Ōtani Setsuko, Takahashi Tōru, and Yamamoto Tokurō) from Japan, North America, and Europe explore the historical and political context in which this literary court romance was created, or relate it to earlier works such as the Man’yōshū and later works such as the Genji and noh theater. Its medieval commentary tradition is also examined, as well as early modern illustrated editions and parodies. The collection brings cutting-edge scholarship of the very highest level to English readers, scholars, and students.

Colonizing Language: Cultural Production and Language Politics in Modern Japan and Korea by Christina Yi (2018)

Publication title: Colonizing Language: Cultural Production and Language Politics in Modern Japan and Korea

Publication year: 2018

Author: Christina Yi

About the book

With the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1894, Japan embarked on a policy of territorial expansion that would claim Taiwan and Korea, among others. Assimilation policies led to a significant body of literature written in Japanese by colonial writers by the 1930s. After its unconditional surrender in 1945, Japan abruptly receded to a nation-state, establishing its present-day borders. Following Korea’s liberation, Korean was labeled the national language of the Korean people, and Japanese-language texts were purged from the Korean literary canon. At the same time, these texts were also excluded from the Japanese literary canon, which was reconfigured along national, rather than imperial, borders.

In Colonizing Language, Christina Yi investigates how linguistic nationalism and national identity intersect in the formation of modern literary canons through an examination of Japanese-language cultural production by Korean and Japanese writers from the 1930s through the 1950s, analyzing how key texts were produced, received, and circulated during the rise and fall of the Japanese empire. She considers a range of Japanese-language writings by Korean colonial subjects published in the 1930s and early 1940s and then traces how postwar reconstructions of ethnolinguistic nationality contributed to the creation of new literary canons in Japan and Korea, with a particular focus on writers from the Korean diasporic community in Japan. Drawing upon fiction, essays, film, literary criticism, and more, Yi challenges conventional understandings of national literature by showing how Japanese language ideology shaped colonial histories and the postcolonial present in East Asia.

The Book of Swindles: Selections from a Late Ming Collection translated by Christopher Rea and Bruce Rusk (2017)

Publication title: The Book of Swindles: Selections from a Late Ming Collection

Publication year: 2017

Author: Translated by Christopher Rea and Bruce Rusk

About the book

This is an age of deception. Con men ply the roadways. Bogus alchemists pretend to turn one piece of silver into three. Devious nuns entice young women into adultery. Sorcerers use charmed talismans for mind control and murder. A pair of dubious monks extorts money from a powerful official and then spends it on whoring. A rich student tries to bribe the chief examiner, only to hand his money to an imposter. A eunuch kidnaps boys and consumes their “essence” in an attempt to regrow his penis. These are just a few of the entertaining and surprising tales to be found in this seventeenth-century work, said to be the earliest Chinese collection of swindle stories.

The Book of Swindles, compiled by an obscure writer from southern China, presents a fascinating tableau of criminal ingenuity. The flourishing economy of the late Ming period created overnight fortunes for merchants—and gave rise to a host of smooth operators, charlatans, forgers, and imposters seeking to siphon off some of the new wealth. The Book of Swindles, which was ostensibly written as a manual for self-protection in this shifting and unstable world, also offers an expert guide to the art of deception. Each story comes with commentary by the author, Zhang Yingyu, who expounds a moral lesson while also speaking as a connoisseur of the swindle. This volume, which contains annotated translations of just over half of the eighty-odd stories in Zhang’s original collection, provides a wealth of detail on social life during the late Ming and offers words of warning for a world in peril.

Imperfect Understanding: Intimate Portraits of Chinese Celebrities edited by Christopher Rea (2018)

Publication title: Imperfect Understanding: Intimate Portraits of Chinese Celebrities

Publication year: 2018

Author: Edited by Christopher Rea

About the book

What did it mean to be a celebrity in 1930s China? Who were Republican China’s preeminent intellectuals, writers, artists, politicians, diplomats, and businesspeople, and how were they represented in the popular press? This anthology brings together fifty rediscovered essays, written in English in 1934, which offer fascinating, close-up profiles of a constellation of celebrities. From the warlord Han Fuju to the Peking Opera star Mei Lanfang to the intellectual leader Hu Shi to the novelist Lao She to ambassador Wellington Koo to the Singaporean Chinese entrepreneur Lim Boon Keng to the deposed Qing Emperor Puyi, the series presents a panorama of Chinese elites. Imperfect Understanding constitutes a significant archival discovery, a unique artifact of the pre-war heyday of Anglophone literary culture in China.

Imperfect Understanding: Intimate Portraits of Chinese Celebrities is both an entertaining work of literature, by turns comedic and touching, and an important historical document. Its sketches represent influential Chinese historical figures, warts and all, in the eyes of contemporary observers seeking to provide readers an alternative to the autobiographical puffery of popular books like Who’s Who in China. Christopher Rea’s introduction offers new research on the forgotten literary figure Wen Yuan-ning and argues that one of the essays published under his name was written anonymously by a young man who went on to become one of modern China’s literary giants: Qian Zhongshu. This edition of Imperfect Understanding also includes multiple reviews of Wen’s book, brief biographies of the subjects of the Critic series, and a bibliography of further writings by and on Wen Yuan-ning.

Da bujing de niandai: Jindai Zhongguo xin xiaoshi [The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China] by Christopher Rea (2018)

China’s Chaplin: Comic Stories and Farces by Xu Zhuodai translated and with an introduction by Christopher Rea (2019)

Publication title: China’s Chaplin: Comic Stories and Farces

Publication year: 2019

Author:Xu Zhuodai translated and with an introduction by Christopher Rea

About the book

Hoaxes! Jokes! Farces and fun! China’s Chaplin introduces the imagination of Xu Zhuodai (1880–1958), a comic dynamo who made Shanghai laugh through the tumultuous decades of the pre-Mao era. Xu was a popular and prolific literary humorist who styled himself variously as Master of the Broken Chamberpot Studio, Dr. Split-Crotch Pants, Dr. Hairy Li, and Old Man Soy Sauce. He was also an entrepreneur who founded gymnastics academies, theater troupes, film companies, magazines, and a home condiments business. While pursuing this varied career, Xu Zhuodai made a name for himself as a “Charlie Chaplin of the East.” He wrote and acted in stage comedies and slapstick films, compiled joke books, penned humorous advice columns, dabbled in parodic verse, and wrote innumerable works of comic fiction. China’s Chaplin contains a selection of Xu’s best stories and stage plays (plus a smattering of jokes) that will answer the questions that keep you up at night. What is a father’s duty when he and his son are courting the same prostitute? What ingenious method might save the world from economic crisis after a world war? Who is Shanghai’s most outrageous grandmother? What is the best revenge against plagiarists, thieves, landlords, or spouses? And why should you never, never, never pull a hair from a horse’s tail?

Asian Studies Statement on Islamophobia

June 11, 2021

The Department of Asian Studies at UBC remains shocked and outraged by the hate-motivated mass murder and serious injury of members of the Muslim Afzaal/Salman family in London, Ontario on Sunday June 6, 2021. In a premeditated plan, the murderer targeted the family for their Islamic faith. UBC Asian Studies strongly condemns this act of terrorism, racism, and Islamophobia, and it invites its community members of faculty, staff, students, and alumni to pause and recognize the magnitude of this abhorrent incident; to reflect on racism and Islamophobia experienced and witnessed in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Canada more broadly; and to reach out to those who have been and will be impacted.

Islamophobia is a pervasive, global reality, including in Canada. A survey, conducted in 2017/2018 by the EKOS Research Associates, concluded that “religious discrimination – especially Islamophobia – stands as an ongoing challenge to Canada’s multicultural society.” The same survey, in what reveals hope for a more egalitarian and tolerant Canada, also stated that “many Canadians recognize the problem of religious discrimination and Islamophobia in Canada, stand firmly opposed to it, and expect the government to take measures to address it.” However, as demonstrated by overall statistics regarding the public perceptions of Islam and Muslims in Canada, both in the abovementioned EKOS research and as cited in a recent submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, we still have a long way to go. The latter submission also shows how Islamophobia in Canadian society must also be understood as a multifaceted issue on societal and structural levels.

The Department of Asian Studies emphasizes the necessity for increasing such awareness and for taking action. UBC, and in particular our department, is home to faculty, staff, students and/or alumni who either self-identify as Muslims or come from Muslim backgrounds. We believe that education–at all levels– remains essential to eradicating racism and bigotry of all kinds, including Islamophobia. We must continue to educate ourselves and commit to more active roles in raising awareness of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism within our communities to tackle Islamophobia at its roots. (For some resources for teachers in addressing Islamophobia, which are also helpful to the public, see here.)

If as a current UBC-community member or alumnus you are impacted in any way by the above incident, please do keep in contact. Help is available. If you are looking for a way to assist those immediately affected by this incident, see here. As of September we will be hosting drop-in sessions for all Asian Studies faculty, staff, and students who want to share their experiences of anti-Muslim discrimination and discuss concrete steps we can take as a department to improve the situation at UBC, in Vancouver, and across Canada.

Literary Information in China: A History co-edited by Bruce Rusk (2021)

Publication title: Literary Information in China: A History

Publication year: 2021

Author: Co-edited by Bruce Rusk

About the book

“Information” has become a core concept across the disciplines, yet it is still often seen as a unique feature of the Western world that became central only in the digital age. In this book, leading experts turn to China’s textual tradition to show the significance of information for reconceptualizing the work of literary history, from its beginnings to the present moment.

Contributors trace the organization of literary information across China’s three millennia of history, examining the forms and practices of information management that have evolved alongside the increasing scale and complexity of textual production. They reimagine literary history as information processing, detailing the many kinds of storage, encoding, sorting, and transmission that constitute and feed back into China’s long and ever-growing cultural tradition. The volume features state-of-the-field essays on all major forms of literary information management, from graphs to internet literature, and from commentaries to literary museums and archives. By shifting focus from individual works and their authors to the informatic schemata of literature, it identifies three scales of information management—the word, the document, and the collection—and surveys the forms that operate at each level, such as the dictionary, the anthology, and the library.

Literary Information in China is a groundbreaking work that provides a systematic and innovative reassessment of literary history with implications that extend beyond the particular Chinese context, revealing how informatic practices shape literary tradition.

Literary Sinitic and East Asia: A Cultural Sphere of Vernacular Reading edited and co-translated by Ross King (2021)

Publication title: Literary Sinitic and East Asia: A Cultural Sphere of Vernacular Reading

Publication year: 2021

Author: Edited and co-translated by Ross King

About the book

In Literary Sinitic and East Asia: A Cultural Sphere of Vernacular Reading, Professor Kin Bunkyō surveys the history of reading technologies referred to as kundoku 訓讀 in Japanese, hundok in Korean and xundu in Mandarin. Rendered by the translators as ‘vernacular reading’, these technologies were used to read Literary Sinitic through and into a wide variety of vernacular languages across diverse premodern East Asian civilizations and literary cultures. The book’s editor, Ross King, prefaces the translation with an essay comparing East Asian traditions of ‘vernacular reading’ with typologically similar reading technologies in the Ancient Near East and calls for a shift in research focus from writing to reading, and from ‘heterography’ to ‘heterolexia’.
Translators are Marjorie Burge, Mina Hattori, Ross King, Alexey Lushchenko, and Si Nae Park.