뉴스레터

Sem Vermeersch

Researcher, Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies

Director, International Center for Korean Studies

Professor Sem Vermeersch studied East Asian language and culture at the University of Ghent in Belgium and went on to acquire his master's degree in Korean studies and his doctoral degree in the history of Korean Buddhism from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) under the University of London. He is now a professor in the religious studies department of Seoul National University and serves as the director of the International Center for Korean Studies at the Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies.

In 2010, Professor Vermeersch won the first James B. Palais Book Prize awarded by the Association for Asian Studies in the United States for his book "The Power of the Buddhas: The Politics of Buddhism during the Koryo Dynasty (918 - 1392)." Among his other major publications is "A Chinese Traveler in Medieval Korea: Xu Jing's Illustrated Account of the Xuanhe Embassy to Koryo."

The year 2018 is the 1,100th anniversary of the Korean kingdom Goryeo's foundation. Upon this special occasion to contemplate the history of Goryeo, a topic worth considering may involve how the topography of Korean studies might appear to Sem Vermeersch, the director of the International Center for Korean Studies at the Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies. This month's interview hence examines the currency of and dynamic developments in Korean studies and historical research on Goryeo and gauges the direction of future research trends with Director Sem Vermeersch working at the forefront of internationalizing Korean studies.

Q

As a foreign scholar of Korean studies, it seems that you may analyze and read historical material with a view more balanced than your Korean peers. Has there been times where you've experienced any difficulties due to cultural and language differences?

A

I don't think the criteria for analysis or reading differs depending on which country you're from or what your nationality is. Korea is, of course, the home of Korean studies and as a scholar in the field, I have been quite lucky to interact with and learn from other scholars with diverse expertise here in Korea. In the 1990s, Occidental scholars were mainly interested in Korea's statism and nationalism, but nowadays, the range of studies has been expanding with the adoption of new perspectives based on gender, statistics, or medical history. We mustn't hastily conclude that foreigners will be more critical or objective toward Korean history. In many cases, my Korean colleagues voice more critical opinions than I do.

At any rate, I can't say there is no language barrier for me since there are times when I find it difficult to understand certain nuances even though I've been studying the Korean language for thirty or so years. Particularly when it comes to describing Korean history in a language other than Korean, a certain degree of reflection is required. For instance, when trying to translate medieval Korean terms involving land like "sajeon" (私田) and "gongjeon" (公田) into English, one needs to weigh between terms like private land, public land, and prebends. Furthermore, one must possess an exact understanding of the meanings behind the Chinese characters that form Korean terms. One could romanize the Chinese character "結" as "gyeol," but to be able to correctly convey what the character means to foreigners who don't understand Korean or Chinese letters, one must additionally explain that the character once represented a unit of land in Korea, which is no easy task.

Q

The number of foreign experts in Korean studies seems to have increased over the years. Have you noticed whether such an increase has brought any changes to research outcomes?

A

Compared to when I first set foot in Korean studies in the 1990s, the number of foreign scholars and studies has increased exponentially. Back then, the field of Korean studies was small enough for everyone to know each other and it was common for scholars to pursue multiple sub-fields like studying both history and language, or anthropology and modern history. But now we have academic societies that specifically focus on Korean literature or Korean history. Throughout the whole of Europe, The Association for Korean Studies in Europe (AKSE) used to be the only group dedicated to Korean studies, but now there are various groups active in different parts of Europe.

At the same time, research interests have been moving on from traditional subjects like history, Confucian culture, and Joseon art to more modern and contemporary subjects. Over the 1970s and 1980s, research tended to focus on shamanism and rural life in Korea, whereas now the range has expanded to cover subjects like Korean pop, queer culture, or cram schools. This sort of change is natural considering how dynamic the contemporary Korean society is. However, unless you master the basics in Korean Chinese characters as well as pre-modern Korean history during your undergraduate years, you will find it extremely difficult to make the progress you desire in studying pre-modern Korean history beyond the master's level.

Q

Goryeo has been a rather marginalized period in the field of Korean historical research. What was it that attracted you to that specific period?

A

What I found most attractive was that it has been a relatively unexplored period. When I entered graduate school in the mid-1990s, it was rare to study Goryeo history, not to mention subjects like Goryeo Buddhism or prehistoric or ancient Korean history. I focused on Silla Buddhism as a master's student, but the more I researched, the more difficult it became to uncover relevant historical material to study, so I switched to studying Goryeo Buddhism for my doctoral degree. Back then, the only research publications available in English were "The Korean Approach to Zen: The Collected Works of Chinul" by Robert Buswell and "The Origins of the Chosŏn Dynasty" by John Duncan. So, specializing in Goryeo history may have been a strategic choice to avoid mainstream studies and go for a niche market, but I was also attracted to the practical diplomacy, magnanimous Buddhist culture, and brilliant works of art during the period of Goryeo.

Q

Occidental scholars have recently tended to focus more on the contemporary period of Korean history. How much does Korean history mean to the narrative flow of East Asian and world history?

A

I think it's safe to say that no scholar tries to limit their research efforts to one particular period of history like Goryeo. I guess pre-modern history is recently being regarded as a challenging subject because it doesn't seem to have much to do with life today. Perhaps choosing and adapting to a timely research topic or field and proving a topic's relevance to a currently recognized field of study are matters of survival for scholars. For example, let's take "Empire’s Twilight" by David Robinson, the most successful book on medieval Korean history. Rather than giving a straightforward depiction of Goryeo, it features the role Goryeo played in the Mongol empire. This does, of course, risk making Goryeo history seem like a fragment of a different topic and leaving out major details, but it may well be the only way to preserve the timeliness and worth of studying Goryeo history.

Q

You published "A Chinese Traveler in Medieval Korea: Xu Jing's Illustrated Account of the Xuanhe Embassy to Koryŏ," an English translation of "Seonhwabongsa goryeodogyeong" (宣和奉使高麗圖經), an illustrated travelogue the Song China envoy Xu Jing authored after his trip to Goryeo. Could you please share your personal thoughts or impressions on translating such works?

A

Translation is inseparable to the kind of research I do and is something impossible to execute without studying pre-modern Korean language in-depth. Before I start writing a research paper or book, I try to translate some of the major passages from a source material. This is because I find it necessary to prepare a viable translation of anything I might end up using as a reference. "A Chinese Traveler in Medieval Korea" allowed me to experience the joy of completing the translation of an entire work and turned out to be a great help in polishing my translating skills. It has also allowed me to hope that it will prove useful for conducting follow-up studies. However, alike any traveler at the time, Xu Jing (1091-1153) had strong preconceptions about Goryeo before traveling to the kingdom, which is why I concluded that his descriptions are not credible enough to be taken at face value. His depiction of Goryeo was exaggerated in stating that Goryeo worshiped and relied on every aspect of Song China and its culture. He did indeed record the differences between Song China and Goryeo as well, but it's hard to say he observed Goryeo carefully enough. I almost got the impression that the method and ideological frame he used to describe such differences may have been unwarranted. On the other hand, I'm actually skeptical about the fact that a more in-depth translation is necessary for facilitating follow-up studies. A translation may be helpful for quickly checking what the original is about, but translation itself is a very labor-intensive process.

In that sense, it is absolutely necessary to publish the four-volume "Cambridge History of Korea" that will cover the histories of ancient Korea, Goryeo, Joseon, and contemporary Korea. I have been charged with editing the volume on Goryeo history with Professor Remco Breuker of Leiden University. I'm excited and scared at the same time about the prospect. Rather than simply listing facts or maintaining a repetitive editing style, the Cambridge History series has been considered successful for having the most respected experts take responsibility in featuring credible, factual descriptions accompanied by extensive comments as well as challenging research findings. So, the process is not likely to be about taking a massive amount of materials that took decades to collect and condensing them into a monotonous summary. We will make ceaseless efforts so that the volume on Goryeo history lives up to the high standard of the series.

Q

As someone studying Goryeo history, you must have some expectations regarding the changes that have been occurring in the two Koreas relationship.

A

A colleague once joked by saying that "if you wish to be a renowned Korean studies expert in the West, you must first become an expert on North Korea because the media is only interested in North Korea." Leaving the joke aside, it's true that Korean studies is at present chained to political circumstances.

I was once hopeful about revitalizing contact and exchange between the two Koreas as I began a study on Gaeseong while working as a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University's Korea Institute. Gaeseong is an area absolutely crucial to studying Goryeo history, which is why I couldn't help but get excited as a scholar. And when the joint excavation of the Manwoldae Palace ruins was launched, everyone had high hopes for some monumental discoveries. Nevertheless, I tried to remain as cool-headed and composed as possible because trust between the two Koreas is something that should be rebuilt over an extended period of time and is more important than constantly excavating remains or reconstructing ruins. On a side note, I reviewed the reports that came out of the Manwoldae Palace excavation and tried to use them for my research, but that never happened because I had never personally been to Gaeseong and lacked the necessary understanding in anthropology.

If Goryeo remains existing in Korea including tombs, buildings, wrecked ships, and agricultural sites can be sufficiently excavated and studied in the future, we may have to reassess and rewrite widely-accepted narratives about Goryeo. That will be a task extremely vital to suggesting the future direction of studying Goryeo history. Meanwhile, there are many interesting Goryeo remains that have yet to capture the attention of academia or the media. Some of them may even carry greater historical significance than Manwoldae Palace, but I think they haven't been properly considered from being obscured by the palace's symbolic meaning and significance.

Q

Do you think the notion of "multi-cultural" in Korean society today is similar to Goryeo's pluralistic tendencies?

A

It depends on how you define "multi-cultural." All societies are, in fact, multi-cultural. A culture cannot survive without regularly interacting with the outside. It's only a matter of whether you acknowledge how much of an impact outside influence has exercised. It seems as if periods regularly come and go of either being tolerant of and open to foreign cultures or rejecting and being closed to them. And this has nothing to do with whether Goryeo had actually been a multi-cultural, tolerant, pluralistic, or multi-polar society.

Instead of hanging on to legitimacy and emphasizing a main line of descent like Joseon did, Goryeo historically treated other countries as equals and acknowledged them as they were. As Professor Breuker revealed in his book "Establishing a Pluralist Society in Medieval Korea, 918-1170," Goryeo allowed incongruity, dissonance, and ambiguity, and displayed pluralistic tendencies through an open society and politics that embraced diverse ideas and cultures. However, because there is a conceptual difference between Goryeo's pluralism and today's notion of multi-cultural, I don't believe the Korean society of today needs to model itself upon Goryeo. Projecting present expectations upon the past always entails risks.

Q

As a scholar of Goryeo history, could you please offer any advice on the Northeast Asian History Foundation's efforts toward internationalization?

A

I think what it needs is a long-term vision. Studies that stick too close to the trend or get swayed by politics are bound to lose their credibility. Whether it be translating or publishing high-quality books, people are the best investment the Foundation can make for the future. Establishing a chair professor system for those studying pre-modern Korean history would probably be the best way to promote historical research on Goryeo or early Joseon. In that sense, perhaps the Foundation could consider getting involved in cultivating talents by supporting doctoral candidates researching Korean history. Because the chair-professor system or supporting doctoral candidates take time to implement, they may seem to go against the short-sighted emphasis on performance prevalent in providing research support, but I still believe they will turn out to be the best investment. I hope the 1,100th anniversary of Goryeo's foundation can serve as a chance for the Foundation to offer new perspectives to researchers and encourage the public to learn more about and take a constant interest in Goryeo's heritage.