The GW Institute for Korean Studies Presents:
Panel Discussion: Korean Cultural Influence in Southeast Asia
Speakers: Kamon Butsaban, Duy Tan La, Hiền Nguyễn Thị
Discussant: Gregg A. Brazinsky
Moderator: Shawn McHale
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
9:00 PM – 11:00 PM EDT
Virtual Event
This event is on the record and open to the public.
Event Description
South Korea’s soft power and cultural influence have become increasingly significant in Southeast Asia during the last two decades. This panel features three eminent Korea experts from Thailand and Vietnam. They will discuss the changing relations between South Korea and Southeast Asia and the way that Vietnamese, Thai, and other Southeast Asians have contributed to South Korea’s growing economic and cultural ties with the region. Professor Shawn McHale, a leading US historian of Vietnamese history will provide commentary.
Speaker
Kamon Butsaban is currently a faculty member in the Faculty of Arts at Chulalongkorn University. He serves as the Head of the Korean section and the Secretary of M.A. Korean Studies Program at the Graduate School at Chulalongkorn University. His fields of research lie in Korean Studies, with particular interests in Korean society and culture. It examines several related themes: Korea’s soft power, Korean wave (Hallyu), and the New Southern Policy, and Thailand-Korea cultural cooperation. Dr. Butsaban received his Ph.D. in international studies from Seoul National University and his M.A. in Korean Studies from Chulalongkorn University and B.A. in Political Science from Prince of Songkla University, Thailand.
Duy Tan La is a full-time lecturer at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities-Vietnam National University (USSH-VNU), Ho Chi Minh city. Graduated from USSH-VNU with a major in Oriental studies, he continued his higher education in South Korea (2010-2018) with a focus on modern Korean history and culture at the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS). He is currently teaching Korean language, courses of “Introduction to Korean history”, and “History of Korean social life” to undergraduate students in the Faculty of Korean Studies, USSH-VNU. His research interest is about Korean and Vietnamese history in comparative perspectives, history of Korea and Vietnam’s relations, issues about North East Asia’s security related to North Korea, etc. He is a young and ambitious scholar in the field of Korean studies who put his faiths and efforts into the development of Korean studies in Vietnam, always looking forward to presenting Vietnam and Korea altogether to the world via international connectedness and scholarly cooperation.
Hiền Nguyễn Thị is a Professor of Korean Studies at the Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City. She is the Editor-in-chief of the Vietnamese Localization of Koreana the quarterly webzine magazine on Korean arts and culture She is the author of Shanghai – Tokyo – Ha Noi – Seoul in East Asian Literature at the beginning of 20th century (2017), and has translated and published a number of books from Korean to Vietnamese, including 20 Years of Korea – Viet Nam’ Relationship (1992 -2002) (2015), An Anthology of Korean Literature (2017), amongst others. She received a Ph.D. in Korean Literature from Seoul National University.
Discussant
Shawn McHale teaches courses on Southeast Asian history, Vietnam, history and memory, and colonialism and its legacy. His book, The First Vietnam War: Violence, Sovereignty, and the Fracture of the South, 1945-56, will be published by Cambridge University Press in August 2021. He spent most of 2019 in Cambodia and Vietnam on an ACLS/ Robert Ho Fellowship in Buddhist Studies, working on a new project on Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist engagements with Theravada Buddhism, 1930-1990.
Moderator
Gregg A. Brazinsky is Professor of History and International Affairs and Deputy Director of GW Institute for Korean Studies. His research seeks to understand the diverse and multi-faceted interactions among East Asian states and between Asia and the United States. He is the author of Nation Building in South Korea: Koreans, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy (University of North Carolina Press, 2007) and Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry during the Cold War (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). He served as Interim Director of the GW Institute for Korean Studies during the Spring 2017 semester.
