Yongho Kim

Category: front

  • Park Noja's Class Note Files on Korean Modern Political Economy History

    Professor Park, Noja (Vladimir Tihonov), who teaches Korean Studies at the Oslo National University, uploaded in February of 2007 a complete set of class notes for an introductory lecture course on Korean Modern History (starting with Japanese colonial occupation) with a focus on the interpenetration of world capitalism, military dictatorships and nationalism on his blog: blog.hani.co.kr/gategateparagate/ I have uploaded the files as direct links and as Google documents (plain HTML) to facilitate access to these valuable materials. He also attached one line descriptions for each class note – they are listed along with their english translations:

    한국 전통 시대 정치 제도
    외국 학생들을 위해서 한국 전통 시대 정치사의 근본을 요약한 강의 노트입니다.
    Chapter 1: Political History during the traditional period of Korea.
    http://blog.hani.co.kr/gategateparagate/4733
    http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfxf4f5_125cqtb5g
    koreas-historie-lecture-1-political-system-of-traditional-korea.doc

    한국사 강의 노트-2: 일제시기 조선, 대만 경제성장의 문제
    외국 학생들을 상대로 해서 일제 시대의 한국, 대만 경제사 및 사회사의 여러 논점을 논합니다.
    Ch. 2: The Problem of Korean and Taiwan’s Economic Development Under Colonialism
    http://wnetwork.hani.co.kr/gategateparagate/4734
    http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfxf4f5_95hr6nhn
    koreas-historie-lecture-2-korea-taiwans-economical-development-under-colonialism.doc

    한국사 강의노트-3: 일제의 준중심부에의 “진출” 과정
    일본의 명치 시대와 그 후의 자본주의 발전을 세계체제론적 시각에서 논하는 강의 노트입니다.
    Ch. 3: Meiji Japan’s Ascension as a Semi Core Power in the Capitalist World System.
    http://wnetwork.hani.co.kr/gategateparagate/4735
    http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfxf4f5_107gw4d3h
    koreas-historie-lecture-3-meiji-japans-ascension-to-the-semi-core-status-in-the-capitalist-world-system.doc

    한국사 강의 노트 – 4: 전후 일본의 중심부 “진출”과 한국의 준중심부화
    역시 세계체제론적 시각으로 1945년 이후의 동북아의 개발의 코스를 조감하는 강의록입니다.
    Ch. 4: Japan’s Post-War Ascension to the Core ans the Semi-Core-ization of Korea and Taiwan.
    http://wnetwork.hani.co.kr/gategateparagate/4736
    http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfxf4f5_1132v89cb
    koreas-historie-lecture-4-post-war-japans-ascension-to-the-core-status-and-s-korea-taiwans-semi-corization.doc

    한국사 강의 노트 – 5: 1945년 이후 한국 개발에 있어서의 식민지적 “유산” (유제)
    일제 시기가 무엇을 남겼는가 라는 문제를 외국인 학생들이 이해하기 쉽게 정리했습니다.
    Ch. 5: Colonial Legacies in South Korea’s Post-Colonial Development
    http://wnetwork.hani.co.kr/gategateparagate/4737
    http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfxf4f5_128cphq43
    koreas-historie-lecture-5-colonial-legacies-in-south-koreas-post-colonial-development.doc

    한국사 강의 노트 – 6: 남한의 “개발”에 있어서의 동북아 시장과 미국 시장
    세계체제론적, 지역 패권 체제론적 관점에서 남한의 “초고속 개발”의 “비결”들을 논합니다.
    Ch. 6: Role of Northeast Asian and U.S. Markets in the “Development” of South Korea.
    http://wnetwork.hani.co.kr/gategateparagate/4738
    http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfxf4f5_137v2kxxf
    koreas-historie-lecture-6-regional-and-american-markets-in-koreas-growth.doc

    한국사 강의 노트 – 7: 한국적 개발 독재의 “상대적 자율성”의 문제
    박정희주의적 국가의 “embedded autonomy” 문제를 논하는 강의록입니다.
    Ch. 7: The Developmental State and the problem of its “Relative Autonomy” in South Korea.
    http://wnetwork.hani.co.kr/gategateparagate/4739
    http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfxf4f5_146cxkbc9
    koreas-historie-lecture-7-the-developmental-state-and-its-relative-autonomy-in-korea.doc

    한국사 강의 노트 – 8: 한국적 개발 독재 모델에 있어서의 노동계급의 구조적 배제 문제
    저임금 노동을 집중적으로 착취하면서 노동자들에게 독자적인 정치, 사회적 영역을 거부하는 박정희주의적 국가의 구조적 특징을 논합니다.
    Ch. 8: The Developmental States and the Political Exclusion of the Working Class in South Korea.
    http://wnetwork.hani.co.kr/gategateparagate/4740
    (Google Documents for this file is not available as there are too many images included)
    koreas-historie-lecture-8-the-developmental-state-and-the-exclusion-of-working-class-in-korea.doc

    한국사 강의 노트 – 9: 한국적 급진 사상 – “민중 이데올로기”
    1980년대 식의 “민중주의적 민족주의”를 쉽게 이야기해주는 강의록입니다.
    Ch. 9: South Korean Radicalism: “Minjung” Ideology in the ’80s
    http://wnetwork.hani.co.kr/gategateparagate/4741
    http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfxf4f5_147f8hgh8
    koreas-historie-lecture-9-the-minjung-ideology-south-korean-radicalism.doc

    한국사 강의 노트 – 10: 근대에 있어서의 한국 유교의 문제
    근대 한국에 있어서 과연 “유교”가 어떻게 기능해왔는가를 논하는 강의록입니다.
    Ch. 10: Confucianism’s Role in Modern Korean Society.
    http://wnetwork.hani.co.kr/gategateparagate/4742
    http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfxf4f5_153gcd6m5
    koreas-historie-lecture-10-confucianism-and-modern-society.doc

    한국사 강의 노트 – 11: 기독교와 진보 사상
    근대사에 있어서의 기독교의 역할과 “좌파적” 사상의 역할을 외국인이 알아듣기 쉽게 논합니다.
    Ch. 11: Christianity and Progressive Ideologies in South Korean Modern History.
    http://wnetwork.hani.co.kr/gategateparagate/4743
    http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfxf4f5_161c7sgps
    koreas-historie-lecture-11-christianity-and-the-progressive-movements-in-south-korea.doc

    한국사 강의 노트 – 12: 남한의 대중 문화사 개략
    남한 대중 문화의 간단한 역사를 서술하고, 그 정치, 사회적 역할을 논합니다.
    Ch. 12: Survey of Modern South Korea’s Popular Culture
    http://wnetwork.hani.co.kr/gategateparagate/4744
    http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfxf4f5_164g2cfhk
    koreas-historie-lecture-12-popular-culture-in-modern-south-korea.doc

    한국사 강의 노트 – 13: 남한 문학에 있어서의 민족주의의 문제
    남한 문학의 “민족주의적” 내용들을 쉽게 이야기해주는 것입니다.
    Ch. 13: Nationalism in Modern South Korean Literature.
    http://wnetwork.hani.co.kr/gategateparagate/4745
    http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfxf4f5_172dpnpsh
    koreas-historie-lecture-13-nationalism-in-literature-in-modern-south-korea.doc

    한국사 강의 노트 – 14: 결론 부분
    한국 근대에 있어서의 이데올로기적 상부 구조의 문제를 집중적으로 논합니다.
    Ch. 14: Summary and Discussion on Ideological Superstructures in Korean Modernity.
    http://wnetwork.hani.co.kr/gategateparagate/4747
    http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfxf4f5_174fmsd2g
    koreas-historie-lecture-14-summary.doc

  • Leavitt Lies: Medicare Part D Enrollment Numbers

    Leavitt says that Medicare Part D was a success because “Around 90 percent of Medicare beneficiaries have enrolled” (DHHS Press Release, 4/4/06) to Part D. This statement is repeated in his Three-Month Progress Report (PDF)

    “[Seniors] have enrolled” is not the exact phrasing I would use. “[Seniors] have been enrolled” is more accurate. Let’s take a quick look at the numbers.

    http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p_DwZ2rHBsQirV7FyDb4RBQ&hl=en

    Source: CMS (web link and direct link to Total Medicare Beneficiaries with Drug Coverage Data (v04.18.06) [Excel.zip, 3KB], Kaiser has a web version of the numbers

    Leavitt includes all kinds of non-voluntary enrollment, and even non-enrollment information into his 27 million figure.

    1. First, 30 million is 69% of total Medicare beneficiaries, not 90%.
    2. Second, 10 million seniors/disabled out of these 30 million have not enrolled to Part D at all. They have had drug coverage all along (Already w/Creditable Coverage), and they should not be included in a report that measures CMS’s success in implementing Medicare Part D. They are beneficiaries to the Employer Retiree Drug Subsidy (RDS) and Federal FEHB and TRICARE programs.
    3. Third, you can’t attribute “Automatic Enrollment” numbers to CMS’s merits. There’s two subcategories, so let’s take a closer look:
      • Medicare-Medical Dual Eligibles: these are low-income seniors/disabled who were forcibly enrolled to Part D in January 1 2006, and went through all sorts of hardships while coping with the insurance companies’ neglect towards them. MediCaid sent them a NOA in late 2005 telling them that their MediCaid prescription drug benefits were being terminated, and Medicare just enrolled them to a randomly selected plan in December 31, 2005. Yes. RANDOM. Formulary and Pharmacy Network hell ensued.
      • Medicare Advantage (HMO, Part C): they were also forcibly enrolled to an HMO-subsidiary PDP from their own HMO by January 1, 2006. They can’t opt out for another plan, because then they lose their entire HMO benefit. They never filled a form requesting Medicare Part D. How can you call that “the senior enrolled”?
    4. Therefore 43 million should not be the 100% standard for counting enrollees, because 20 million out of those either do not have to enroll to Part D (and indeed they haven’t) or cannot enroll to it because they have been enrolled forcibly. The 100% goal should be 21 million
    5. And out of those, only 8 million have enrolled to this date. That’s why CBOs and CMS are scrambling to get the remaining 13 million enrolled before the May 15 2006 deadline.

    Let’s stand corrected. The real enrollment of seniors/disabled who chose to enroll to Medicare Part D because they looked at their options and made a rational choice (a capitalist economy ideal, no?) is 8 million out of 21 million, which is a whoopping 38%. Not 90%.

    [Tags]Medicare, Medicare Part D, Prescription Drug Plan, Enrollment, Numbers, Statistics, DHHS[/Tags]

  • The Black Body as a feared Necessity in the Post-Industrial Urban Economy

    response paper to the Sixth Annual African American Studies Conference at Macalester College

    Freedom Movements
    February 16, 2005
    Yongho Kim

    In her keynote speech Democracy and Captivity, Joy Ann James argues that the prison-state constitutes the institution through which neoslave narratives are embodied in the United States. A neoslave narrative, James argues, is “a recycling of the fear/hate of the black body”, but in her use of the prefix neo, I think, she is also pointing out parallel structures of doxa regarding the slave and its relationship to the master in american public discourse, both during pre-“emancipation” and in the current times.

    As Rose Brewer and Nancy A. Heitzeg, and several other speakers/participants argue throughout the conference, the prison-state weaves itself closely together with the prison industrial complex, an economic structure aimed at squeezing a critical surplus required for sustained economic growth. With the rise of the post-industrial ghetto, white america fears and decimates the unnecessary black bodies while simultaneously depending on its cheap or free labor to sustain a new economy.

    In this paper, I trace the path of this development through a small sample of focus points in history and try to set the grounds for understanding the business downtown/inner city ring/suburb as an expression of neoslave narrative.
    (more…)

  • Maasai Identity as a Subject of Tourism

    Yongho Kim
    Anthropology 258: African Societies
    November 28, 2003

    The Maasai[1] are Maa-speaking, pastoral groups spread throughout the Rift Valley in Kenya and Tanzania. The Maasai have been subject of numerous scholastic inquiries and critical analyses that challenge the theoretical assumptions underlying the expressions “The Maasai”, “Maasai are”, “Maa-speaking”, “pastoral” and “groups” from the previous sentence. Some of these challenges will form part of several arguments in this paper.

    This paper links two fields of research normally carried out under the divisions of “ethnicity” and “tourism”. My central claim is that intensive and prolonged encounter with the West through tourism and a series of dialectic dialogues following such relationships has shaped in the present a certain notion of identity among the Maasai themselves that affirms the very existence of the Maasai as a group vis-à-vis a subject of the tourist industry – the person at the other side of the camera.

    Theoretically, this task relies on the arguments carried forward by Galaty, Appiah, and Bruner. Through Galaty, ethnic identity is recognized as a flexible concept. Appiah challenges modernist accounts of culture as an alternative to race by noting the illusion of ethnohistoricity and arguing that discourse of culture is a continuation from the discourse of race. Bruner identifies cultural authenticity as a key theme underlying the tourist discourse. My contribution is in putting the three theorists in a conversation and establishing a parallel between cultural authenticity and racial affirmation.

    Ethnographic material supporting this thesis consists of three books written by Western-educated Maasai about their own groups. Saitoti’s two books, Maasai and The Worlds of a Maasai Warrior, reflect a transition period where the claim to an ethnic identity shifts from that of resistance against intruding political forces – British and Kenyan – to that of affirmation of authenticity. A comparison of Satitoti’s perspective with Lekuton’s autobiography, Facing the Lion, reveals the complex and multilayered response to an emerging discourse of the tourist industry, where authenticity is endorsed as a renewed substitute to the traditional. In other words, being traditional is not enough, for the tourist wants the “real” tradition, an authentic one.

    Is this new paradigm of ethnic identity among the Maasai a form of resistance? – Is it subordination to the global political economy embodied in tourism? Whatever it may be, the Maasai perform it most excellently.

    (more…)

  • Resurrección

    Cada vez que el pueblo sufría de sequía o males del cielo,
    los sacerdotes se dirigían al pozo sagrado, con el fin de calmar la ira de los dioses del agua.
    Acompañábanse de fermosas vírgenes,
    a quienes lanzaban al pozo tras finalizar el ritual del sacrificio.
    Las vírgenes participaban del rito con actitud solemne y el rostro bajo,
    pero siempre, después de ser lanzados al vacío y al profundo pozo,
    quedaba sólo un grito agudo y largo, como único testigo triste del sacrificio fumano,
    y las abundantes joyas y utensilios que los sacerdotes dejaban caer.

    • Diego de Landa (1524-1579), Las relaciones consanguíneas del Yucatán –

    Murmullos contenidos. Pasos firmes y cortantes, monótono ritmo de lanzas con puntas de piedra chocando unas contra otras. Penetrantes rayos del sol llenando la tensión general con un calor de mediodía.

    Ella caminaba. Su largo manto púrpura se arrastraba esparciendo un soplo de perfume de canelo sobre el alfombrado de rocas pulidas y encajonadas a lo largo del camino al templo.

    Delante de ella, con pasos sólidos y como si quisiese dejar una huella eterna en aquel sendero al pozo sagrado, el sacerdote avanzaba, con su túnica ceremonial cubierto de adornos simbólicos, partes de la barba blanca asomándosele por las espaldas, un machete a la cintura.

    (more…)