Re-Born Korea is a series that reintroduces significant works from the Academy of Korean Studies to a global readership, bringing influential scholarship into conversation with contemporary questions. This inaugural volume begins with a timely yet enduring question: Why Korean Studies, and why now?
Although Korean Studies is commonly understood as the study of Korea, its origins were anything but straightforward. Emerging at the intersection of colonial systems of knowledge and efforts to reclaim Korean history and identity, the field evolved through continuing debates over universalism and particularism, tradition and modernity, and nationalism and global perspectives.
Remapping Korean Studies traces the formation and development of Korean Studies from the modern transition through the colonial and post-liberation periods, showing how the field has responded to changing historical and intellectual contexts. Rather than presenting Korean Studies as the search for a fixed idea of “Koreanness,” the book reveals it as an evolving body of scholarship shaped by historical experience, critical inquiry, and exchanges across intellectual and national boundaries.
Offering a thoughtful and accessible introduction to the origins, major debates, and future directions of Korean Studies, this volume will serve as an invaluable guide for students, scholars, libraries, and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Korea and the field devoted to its study.
Also available in Korean as Hangukhak gyeonggye reul neomda 한국학, 경계를 넘다.

Writer
Kim Keong-il.  Professor Emeritus, The Graduate School of Korean Studies, The Academy of Korean Studies

Editor
Ko Chanmi.  Senior Editor, The Academy of Korean Studies

PART 1. THE BEGINNINGS OF KOREAN STUDIES
  1. The Discourse of Colonial Rule Disguised as Universality 
  2. A Single Ancestral Myth and Japanese Kokugaku 
  3. Knowledge Systems in Colonial Joseon 
  4. The Making of Korean Studies 
  5. The Intellectual Landscape of Korean Studies in the 1930s 
  6. Leading Figures of the New Culture Movement 
  7. Conditions for “Blooming” of Korean Studies 

PART 2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF KOREAN STUDIES
  1. The Clash between Universalism and Particularism 
  2. The Ideology of a Particular Colonial Situation 
  3. An Jae-hong’s Attempt to Reconcile Universalism and Particularism 

PART 3. THE GROWTH OF KOREAN STUDIES
  1. Conceptions of Time and Space 
  2. The Debate on the Asiatic Mode of Production and Baek Nam-un’s Insight 
  3. An Jae-hong’s Korean Studies: “Now, Here, and Us” 
  4. Frustrations and Limitations, Yet Beyond 

PART 4. THE EVOLVING LANDSCAPE OF KOREAN STUDIES
  1. Diverse Traditions of Korean Studies 
  2. Reconsidering Universalism and Particularism 
  3. Historical Continuity and Discontinuity 
  4. Debates over Indigenous Development 

PART 5. EXPANDING KOREAN STUDIES: SEARCHING FOR NEW PATHS
  1. Searching for an Alternative Modernity in Korea 
  2. Contested Nationalism 
  3. Korean Studies in an East Asian Context 
  4. Korean Studies across Borders: Debates, Dialogue, and Exchange 

Korean Studies Beyond Itself