Eugene Y. Park
Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History
Director, James Joo-Jin Kim Program in Korean Studies
Professor Eugene Y. Park specializes in the social history of Korea since the seventeenth century. His current book research project reconstructs the history of an obscure chungin (“middle people”) family of early modern Korea and addresses questions about Korean modernity, identities, and historical agency. He will publish the findings of his research in a book, A Family of No Prominence: The Descendants of Pak Tŏkhwa and the Birth of Modern Korea, 1590–1945 (under review by Stanford University Press).
Park was born in Seoul, South Korea and grew up in southern California. After graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles as a History major (1991), he studied at Harvard University where he received his M.A. in Regional Studies East Asia (1993) and Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations (1999). He taught at the University of California, Irvine from 2000 to 2009 before joining the University of Pennsylvania faculty in 2009 and serving as the Director of James Joo-Jin Kim Program in Korean Studies. He has received grants and fellowships from the Fulbright Program, Korea Foundation, Seoul National University Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies, and Yale University Council on East Asian Studies. Each year, he also teaches as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Seoul National University’s International Summer Institute.
Park has written a monograph—Between Dreams and Reality: The Military Examination in Late Chosŏn Korea, 1600–1894 (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007)—and numerous essays, including “Status and ‘Defunct’ Offices in Early Modern Korea: The Case of Five Guards Generals (Owijang), 1864–1910” (Journal of Social History, 2008) and “Saeroun kajoksa ŭi ch’ugu: kŭndae Han’guk ŭi chokpo p’yŏnch’an kwa chungin ch’ŭng ŭi panŭng” [A search for a new family history: genealogy compilation and the reactions of chungin stratum in modern Korea] (Yŏksa munje yŏn’gu, 2008).
Much of Park’s research concerns the continuities and breaks of Korea’s experience across the conventionally recognized divide of the Open Port period. He is especially interested in the institutions that organized and gave meaning to early modern society and how they changed during the encounter with Western imperialism. Overall fascinated by origins, connections, and representations, he also has a longstanding interest in genetics, primatology, genealogy, and portraiture.
Courses Taught (As Schedule Allows)
For current course listings, consult the Course Directory.
- HIST 005 East Asia: Past and Present
- HIST 098 Introduction to Korean Civilization
- HIST 121 Modern Korea
- HIST 206 Korea’s Military Tradition
- HIST 230 Genes and Human History
- HIST 630 Readings in Korean History
Research Articles and Chapters
“Kŭnhyŏndae Han’guk ŭi sinbun ŭisik kwa yŏksa ŭi chuch’esŏng: chŏnmunjik chungin mit husondŭl ŭi sŏndae insik ŭl chungsim ŭro” [Status consciousness and historical agency in modern Korea: the specialist chungin and the descendants’ notions of ancestry]. In Korean. In Hwai pudong ŭi Tong Asia hak [East Asian studies of harmony without uniformity], edited by Sim Chaehun, pp. 97–129. Seoul: P’urŭn Yŏksa, 2012.
“Chosŏn hugi ŭi mukwa chedo wa Han’guk ŭi kŭndaesŏng” (The Late Chosŏn Military Examination System and Korean Modernity). In Korean. Han’guk munhwa (Korean Culture) 51 (September 2010): 299–319.
“Saeroun kajoksa ŭi ch’ugu: kŭndae Han’guk ŭi chokpo p’yŏnch’an kwa chungin ch’ŭng ŭi panŭng” [A search for a new family history: genealogy compilation and the reactions of chungin stratum in modern Korea]. In Korean. Trans. Yi Kanghan. Yŏksa munje yŏn’gu (Critical Studies on Modern Korean History) 20 (October 2008): 139–167.
“Imagined Connections in Early Modern Korea, 1600–1894: Representations of Northern Elite Miryang Pak Lineages in Genealogies.” Seoul Journal of Korean Studies 21.1 (June 2008): 1–27.
“Status and ‘Defunct’ Offices in Early Modern Korea: The Case of Five Guards Generals (Owijang), 1864–1910.” Journal of Social History 41.3 (Spring 2008): 737–757.
“War and Peace in Premodern Korea: Institutional and Ideological Dimensions.” In The Military and South Korean Society, edited by Young-Key Kim-Renaud, R. Richard Grinker, and Kirk W. Larsen, pp. 1–13. The Sigur Center Asia Papers Vol. 26. Washington DC: Sigur Center for Asian Studies, George Washington University, 2006.
“Local Elites, Descent, and Status Consciousness in Nineteenth-Century Korea: Some Observations on the County Notable Listings in the Chosŏn Hwanyŏ Sŭngnam.” In Han’guksa e issŏsŏ chibang kwa chungang [The periphery and the center in Korean history], edited by Chŏng Tuhŭi and Edward J. Shultz, pp. 205–225. Seoul: Sogang University Press, 2003.
“Military Examinations in Sixteenth-Century Korea: Political Upheaval, Social Change, and Security Crisis.” Journal of Asian History 35.1 (2001): 1–57.
“Military Examinations in Late Chosŏn, 1700–1863: Elite Substratification and Non-Elite Accommodation.” Korean Studies 25.1 (2001): 1–50.
“Chosŏn ch’ogi mukwa ch’ulsin ŭi sahoejŏk chiwi: T’aejong-Sŏngjong nyŏn’gan ŭi kŭpcheja rŭl chungsim ŭro” [The social status of early Chosŏn military examination graduates: passers from the reign of T’aejong through that of Sŏngjong]. In Korean. Yŏksa wa hyŏnsil (Quarterly Review of Korean History) 39 (March 2001): 100–126.
“Military Examination Graduates in Early Chosŏn: Their Social Status in the Fifteenth Century.” The Review of Korean Studies 3.1 (July 2000): 123–156.
