• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.22
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• pp.279-301
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• 2011

This paper is aimed to examine the current research and educational problems of foreign studies in Korean universities and review some alternative ways. Area studies as foreign studies have several characteristics which are different from those of the other research disciplines. It is a research and educational program that promotes comprehensive understanding about political, economic, social, and cultural phenomena of a specific area in the world. For better understand 'others', researchers in the field of area studies must explain the whole mechanism of the area, which could be revealed in terms of the very existence of its reality. Foreign studies are accomplished with joint-research method, collaborating two or more different research disciplines and based on the contemporary system of knowledge accumulation and educational program. Therefore, the critical issue can be gradually taken on a political and social characteristic. At this point, research and educational manner in foreign studies field in Korea should be changed to secure the academic reflections of temporality, sociality, placeness using a new paradigm such as complexity.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.121-142
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• 2018

Area studies are sometimes framed as focused on specific localities, rooted in deep linguistic, cultural and historical knowledge, and hence empirically rich but, as a result, as yielding non-transferable/non-translatable findings and hence as theoretically poor. In Europe and North America some social science disciplines like sociology, economics and political science routinely dismiss any reference to local specifics as parochial "noise" interfering with their universalizing pretensions which in reality obscure their own Euro-American parochialism. For more qualitatively oriented disciplines like history, anthropology and cultural studies the inherent non-universality of (geographically constricted) area studies presents a predicament which is increasingly fought out by resorting to philosophical concepts which usually have a Eurocentric pedigree. In this paper, however, I argue that concepts with arguably European pedigree - like religion, culture, identity, heritage and art - travel around the world and are adopted through vernacular discourses that are specific to locally inflected histories and cultural contexts by annexing existing vocabularies as linguistic vehicles. In the process, these vernacularized "universal" concepts acquire different meanings or connotations, and can be used as powerful devices in local discursive fields. The study of these processes offer at once a powerful antidote against simplistic notions of "global"/"universal" and "local," and a potential corrective to localizing parochialism and blindly Eurocentric universalism. I develop this substantive argument with reference to my own professional, disciplinary and theoretical trajectory as an anthropologist and historian focusing on Vietnam, who used that experience - and the empirical puzzles and wonder encountered - in order to develop theoretical interests and questions that became the basis for larger-scale, comparative research projects in Japan, China, India, South Africa, Brazil and Europe. The subsequent challenge is to bring the results of such larger, comparative research "home" to Vietnam in a meaningful way, and thus overcome the limitations of both area studies and Eurocentric disciplines.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• no.41
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• pp.96-103
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• 2003

The historical separation between organization studies and architecture area created a design environment in which wort processes are evaluated separately from setting where they occur. The impact of separation has been parallel yet disconnected development in th two disciplines in which the advance in one arena have not precipitated advances in the other. This is the unfortunate loss as each discipline has the potential to contribute directly to the other. With the emergence of new economy the opportunity to realign the tow disciplines is once again presented as new ways of working have enhanced this opportunity. It is important to revisit the historical development of the tow disciplines and to discuss how the misalignment of their respective concerns contributed to the establishment of our current situation. What happened to create an environment in which organizations assume that one of their largest capital expenditures the cost of providing work spaces for employees is unrelated to their work process\ulcorner what recent developments offer opportunities to rectify this dilemma\ulcorner In this study it is presented a historical review of organization studies and architecture. Through examination of these areas across time it becomes quite apparent that it is now appropriate to pose new questions about organization and their architecture. The comparison of two parallel developments explains how the current design environment is separated from organization studies and offers compelling evidence for why it is important to revisit this separation in light of contemporary theories on collaborative work, organizational learning and communities of practice.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.13-57
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• 2015

The paper brings together several strands of debate and deliberation in which I have been involved since the early 2000s on the definition of Southeast Asia and the rationale of Southeast Asian Studies. I refer to the relationship between area studies and methodologies as a conundrum (or puzzle), though I should state from the outset that I think it is much more of a conundrum for others than for me. I have not felt the need to pose the question of whether or not area studies generates a distinctive method or set of methods and research practices, because I operate from a disciplinary perspective; though that it is not to say that the question should not be posed. Indeed, as I have earned a reputation for "revisionism" and championing disciplinary approaches rather than regional ones, it might be anticipated already the position that I take in an examination of the relationships between methodologies and the practice of "area studies" (and in this case Southeast Asian [or Asian] Studies). Nevertheless, given the recent resurgence of interest in the possibilities provided by the adoption of regional perspectives and the grounding of data gathering and analysis within specified locations in the context of globalization, the issues raised for researchers working in Southeast Asia and within the field of Southeast Asian Studies require revisiting.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.29
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• pp.287-314
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• 2012

This article examines the problems with some words used in "Chinese novel Kam Pin Mui"that are presented in"the Great Chinese-Korean dictionary". The author analyses the problems into three aspects: first, error correction in meaning interpretation; second, supplementary correction in meaning interpretation; and third, additional error correction. The main points of the study are presented in the following. First, in relation to the error correction in meaning interpretation, this study finds out that the explanations of "Liezi", "daxuanmo", "kedui", "shaojian" in the "Great Chinese-Korean dictionary"are incorrect. The cases involve the explanations that have no foundation, do not get to the points, and have narrow meaning interpretations compared with original meanings. Second, as for the supplementary correction, this study points out that the explanations of "yiri", "jiaosa", "buxi", "langhu" are not sufficient. Thus, this study claims that the following meanings for each case should be added, including "long time," "abdominal pains during pregnancy," "a type of folk performing arts without stages in local areas of China, and "to devour in greedy gulps." Third, with respect to the additional error correction, this study analyses "the typos of the examples," "the setup of inaccurate meaning items," "the front-to-back arrangement of the examples," and "inconsistency between meaning interpretations and examples" displayed in the dictionary. The error correction in the dictionary can be possible only if the findings from several other disciplines should be incorporated, involving cultural history, the history of literature, philology, grammatology, linguistics, etc. It seems impossible for a person to solve all the problems with the errors in the dictionary. Thus, it will be greatly helpful to the author and the people who prepare for the new edition of "the Great Chinese-Korean dictionary" if we can get continuous supports and comments from relating scholars of other disciplines. As a result, all these efforts will contribute to the academic progress for the relevant disciplines and these academic activities may develop a new area of the study.

• Asia-pacific Journal of Multimedia Services Convergent with Art, Humanities, and Sociology
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• v.5 no.5
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• pp.59-68
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• 2015

Since interdisciplinary convergence could beyond the borders of each disciplines, it is able to create new and meaningful knowledge through collaborative research between different study areas. Especially, in recent years, the Digital Humanities has attracted the attention as the convergence form of the Humanities and ICT. From a research methodology perspective, the Digital Humanities is a tool that can be used as a convergence system for various information utilization such as storage, retrieve, share, and spread. In view of Information system, Digital Humanities has been constructed and used in a variety of systems. Among them, studies related to information visualization for the Digital Humanities have been actively conducted. To visualize data or information, various types such as images, multimedia, interface, and etc could be applied. In this paper, we analyze the cases of various information visualization in digital humanities systems, and propose a method to utilize them in the Humanities and Area Studies.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.7-40
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• 2019

The essay reflects on the work of Adrian Lapian (1929-2011), an Indonesian scholar of archipelagic/maritime Southeast Asia and its "sea people-sea pirates-sea kings." The essay suggests that Lapian's writing mirrors navigation at sea, and the constant re-orientation and ever-changing, multiple points of view that are part of it. This is contrasted to Foucault's "panopticism" and academic desire for discipline. Taking cue from Lapian's writing and from the present author's experience of seafaring, the essay envisions Southeast Asian studies as a fluid, precarious, disorienting, even nauseating multiplicity of experiences, dialogues, and moving, unstable, and uncertain points of view; a style of learning that is less (neo)colonial, more humble, and closer to experiences in the region, than super-scholarship that imposes universalizing, panoptic standards, theories and methods (typically self-styled as "new") that reduce the particular into a specimen of the general, a cell in the Panopticon. The essay concludes with reflections on certain learning initiatives/traditions at the National University of Singapore, including seafaring voyages-experiences, encounters, and conversations that make students and scholars alike to move and see differently, to be touched, blown away, rocked, swayed, disoriented, swallowed, transformed, and feel anew their places, roots, bonds, distances, fears, blindness, powerlessness.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.1381-1387
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• 2014

According to continuous development of information technology, it is needed to make convergence of other disciplines such as humanities and area studies. Among convergence fields related to information technology and humanities/area studies, electronic cultural atlas represents various digitalized cultural information on electronic map using spatial data such as points, lines, and polygons through time, spatial, and subject axises. Knowledge map is to represent special academic information based on electronic cultural atlas. In details, knowledge map can provide integrated information sharing and spread because academic information associated with electronic cultural atlas and data related to per subjects, regions, and period become organically connected. Therefore, knowledge map may be utilized to promote scholastic research and diffuse research result. In this paper, we describe basic concept and composition of knowledge map and propose design method to construct knowledge map.

• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.1-29
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to review the Southeast Asian studies in Korea in a comprehensive way and to set a new task for our academic community. To do this, I tried to analyze the total amount and trends of scholarly achievement (thesis, journal articles, and academic books). The content is divided into research history, research accumulation, and researcher scale. The history of research dates back more than we thought and was decentralized. Research accumulation is becoming more and more pluralistic. The number of researchers from various academic fields was higher than expected. The newly discovered Southeast Asian studies of Korea suggests the task of increasing the inclusiveness of our academic community. The KASEAS (Korean Association of Southeast Asian Studies) seems to be narrow and stagnant compared to the trend of Southeast Asian studies in Korea, which is constantly growing quantitatively, academically spreading, and transcending nationality. In order to increase the inclusiveness of the KASEAS, efforts should be made to open a variety of decentralized and autonomous study groups, to invite domestic graduate students from Southeast Asia, and to spread the university's foothold as a point of contact between pluralistic disciplines.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.81-91
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• 1995

Modern geography in France since the end of 19th century was begun with regional geography. France after losing the Franco-Prussian war in 1871 had tried to regain the deteriorated national proudness through the colonial expansion. The social and historical contexts in France had encouraged French geographers to engage in detailed small area studies. In particular, after Blache became a faculty at Sorbonne University his idea on integrative rather than selective description on area studies had gained paradigmatic popularity not only in geography but in other disciplines. The regional geography tradition was then firmly established as a science and as an art by Vidalian school until the beginning of Second World War. However, when industrialization and urbanization were the dominant science since the 1950s spatial analytic geography has become popular research tradition replacing the previledged regional geography. Nevertheless, geography in France is still acknowledged as an interesting and valuable discipline since regional geography tradition had accumulated rich knowledges on various regions. As regional geography provides valuable information and helps to understand various world regions, it should be regenerated as a research tradition which are able to fulfill societal needs accruing nowadays. By doing this, geography can rectify its disciplinary identity which has been disintegrated internally by giving too much emphasis on specialties, and melding into nearby disciplines. Our geography education for the chorography in particular focuses mainly on the listings of simple geographic facts, in this regard. Rather than attracting students' concern and motivation, geography is considered as a subject oriented toward simply memorizing geographic facts. To overcome these problems, regional geography should be discussed openly and popularized in research. Regional geographic methods available and results produced in other countries should be introduced, and critical assessments should be made for selective acknowledgment for nurturing our regional geography.