More Funds Needed for Korean Studies in US
By Kim Se-jeong
Staff Reporter
The president of the Association for Asian Studies of the United States says Korean studies at American universities need nourishment to strengthen scholarship and professorship.
Robert Buswell, a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles, said, ``The continuing challenge facing Korean studies is how to recruit new students into the field and help those who have already made a personal commitment to the field establish themselves.''
He gave a speech in a forum hosted by the Korea Foundation Thursday at the Seoul Plaza Hotel. Buswell is the first Korea specialist to head the association in its 67-year history.
He has maintained a long connection with Korea since 1974, when he entered Songgwang Temple in South Jeolla Province as a novice monk. He lived there for five years and received the Buddhist honorary name ``Hyesan.''
Buswell also helped establish a UCLA research center for Korean studies that opened in 1993, which he chaired until 2001.
Korean studies in the United States have made visible progress in representation at universities, reaching its peak with his appointment as the head of the association, he said. The subject, however, still badly trails studies on China and Japan.
Among the association's 6,700 members, researchers whose primary focus is Korea number about 400, or a little more than five percent of membership, he said.
Even at universities with a Korean studies department, he said the faculty size is very small at usually under three members.
At UCLA, which has largest department of Asian studies in the United States, the faculty includes six Korean studies professors and 55 undergraduate and 22 graduate courses on Korea.
Buswell urged support from outside the community as imperative to expand Korean studies.