Arif Dirlik in South Korea

ABSTRACT

To many South Korean scholars, Arif Dirik has been known as one of the renowned and distinguished scholars mainly for his criticism of globalization and postcolonialism, not for his studies of radical politics and radicalism in modern China. As a result, his radical scholarship has been well-received mostly by those in the literature and Cultural Studies fields. Unlike them, South Korean historians of modern China have generally remained indifferent or unresponsive to it. In some cases, they even attempted to deradicalize his scholarship out of their self-censorship, citing selectively his works, most of which they think were radical or “pro-PRC or socialist,” on the basis of their academic faith in “neutrality” and “objectivity.” With the translated publication of his various articles and books available in South Korea, however, Dirlik’s radical scholarship seems to have left a profound impact and influences on the emerging new generation of South Korean scholars, which with its wide range of interest and intellectual curiosity has responded particularly to his call for serious scholarship and “place-based politics” in various ways.

KEYWORDS:

• Arif Dirlik
• radical scholarship
• South Korean scholars
• South Korean historians of modern China
• deradicalization of Dirlik’s scholarship
• place-based politics
• new generation of South Korean scholars

Special terms

Table

Notes

1 See Editor’s Note (2006). This is a short introduction to the special issue, written by the journal’s then-editor.

2 See http://news.joins.com/article/print/3723896. In the subsequent years, he has been described by other two major conservative newspapers as “a historian of critical and radical scholarship” Chosun Ilbo [Korea Daily] in 2005: http://m.chosun.com/svc/article.html?sname=news&contid=2005101470270 and as “one of American distinguished scholars who have critical views of the globalization under neo-liberalism” and “have criticized the capitalist globalization” Dong-a Ilbo [East Asia Daily] in 2011: https://www.donga.com/news/View?gid=36432989&date=20110415.

3 The lecture was later published in May 2013 in Interventions.

4 See Dirlik (2014). As far as I know, this paper was published simultaneously in Taiwan and Malaysia.

5 His books and articles that had been translated in South Korea were all published by a major publisher in Seoul (Changbi Publishing) and/or major journals as I mentioned above. But the two recently translated books were published by either local or minor publishers, and they are Sanjini Publishing and Ecolivres Publishing which published Global Modernity in translation for the Institute for the Study of National Culture at Busan University in the city of Busan.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dongyoun Hwang

Dongyoun Hwang is Professor of Asian Studies at Soka University of America. He is the author of Anarchism in Korea: Independence, Transnationalism, and the Question of Development, and a co-editor and annotator (with George O. Totten III) of a new edition of Song of Arirang: The Life of a Korean Revolutionary in China by Kim San and Nym Wales (forthcoming). He is currently working on two research projects: Zhou Fohai’s wartime diary from 1937 to 1945 and anarchist education in China (Quanzhou) and South Korea (Anui).