East Asian Intellectual History Reading Group

동아시아 지성사 독회모임

An interdisciplinary reading group exploring East Asian political thought and intellectual history through new methodological lenses.
Working across the history of ideas, cultural history, political history, and international relations, we seek a new scholarly language grounded in the historical experience of East Asia.

About

About the Reading Group

Founded in June 2024, the East Asian Intellectual History Reading Group brings together researchers in the history of ideas, cultural history, political history, and international relations to develop new methodologies for studying East Asian political thought.

We critically engage the methodological traditions of intellectual and conceptual history — J.G.A. Pocock, Elías Palti, Quentin Skinner, Michel Foucault — while testing these approaches against concrete cases: late Chosŏn political thought, Ming-Qing village society, Chosŏn-Qing tributary relations, modern Sino-Korean history, and postcolonial Korean trusteeship debates.

Our aim is to develop concepts and theories — a new scholarly "language" — capable of fully articulating East Asia's historical experience, and through it to offer East Asian responses to the universal themes of political science: the state, sovereignty, governance, and international order.

Venue
Institute of International Affairs, Seoul National University (Bldg. 220, Rm. 513)
Frequency
Monthly
Founded
June 2024
Format
Reading discussion · Paper presentation · Workshop

Members

멤버

Choi Inho
최인호
Seoul National University
Convener
Kang Minjung
강민정
Seoul National University
Kim Minsu
김민수
University of Cambridge
Kim Youngyeon
김영연
Seoul National University
Song Jiye
송지예
Seoul National University
Song Jihye
송지혜
Seoul National University
Lee Sangmin
이상민
Yonsei University

Seminar Archive

세미나 기록

In-person meetings at SNU's Institute of International Affairs (Bldg. 220, Rm. 513) and the Asia Center, together with official Zoom seminars, are listed.

April 16, 2026 · Zoom
AI Research Tools Workshop — Claude Code and the Practice of Humanities Research
Workshop
Format
  • Members demonstrated their own use of AI tools (Claude Code, Perplexity Comet, etc.) for research, writing, and source management via live screen sharing, exchanging practical tips
  • Focused on concrete use cases in reading intellectual-history sources, summarizing and translating primary materials, and supporting the broader research workflow
Host: Song Jihye
March 12, 2026 · Institute of International Affairs, Bldg. 220, Rm. 513
Diplomatic Tensions between Japan and Russia over the Eulsa Protectorate Treaty — The Exequatur for the Russian Consul-General in Korea
Paper
Presentation Material
Presenter: Song Jiye
January 8, 2026 · Institute of International Affairs, Bldg. 220, Rm. 513
The Shifting Meaning of Han (閒, "Leisure") in Early-17th-Century Bureaucratic Literati Prose
Paper
Presenter: Kim Youngyeon
December 5, 2025 · Zoom
Filial Recommendation and the Moral Edification of Villagers in 15th-Century Chosŏn — The Formation of Virtue-Centered Personnel Thought
Paper
Paper & Readings
Presenter: Lee Sangmin
October 31, 2025 · Institute of International Affairs, Bldg. 220, Rm. 513
Reading Hanjungnok (Memoirs of Lady Hyegyŏng) — 18th-Century Court Memoir and Political Memory
Reading
Presenter: Lee Sangmin
September 11, 2025 · Institute of International Affairs, Bldg. 220, Rm. 513
The Two Faces of the Postwar Trusteeship System — Spoils of War or Protectorate?
Paper
Presentation Material
Presenter: Song Jiye
July 30, 2025 · Institute of International Affairs, Bldg. 220, Rm. 513
18th-Century Chosŏn-Qing Tributary Relations and the Coexistence of Taemyŏng ŭiri (Loyalty to Ming)
Paper
Paper & Readings
  • Heo Tae-ku, "King Chŏngjo's Qing Diplomacy and the Coexistence of Loyalty to Ming: Context and Meaning"
  • Veritable Records of the Chosŏn Dynasty (Chosŏn wangjo sillok) — selected entries on Qing relations under Sukchong (yr. 11), Yŏngjo, and Chŏngjo
  • Pak Chiwŏn, Rehe Diary (Yŏrha ilgi) — "Simse" (Examining the Times) and "Hojil huji" (Postscript to the Tiger's Rebuke)
  • Choi Inho, presentation on Chosŏn-Qing relations PDF · compiled primary sources DOCX
Presenter: Choi Inho
June 12, 2025 · SNU Asia Center
Self-Realization and the Bo Yi Discourse Among Late-Chosŏn Neo-Confucian Scholars
Paper
Paper & Readings
Presenter: Kang Minjung
April 10, 2025 · Institute of International Affairs, Bldg. 220, Rm. 513
Spatial Representations of Jiangnan and Ming-Qing Intellectuals: Yang Nianqun's Where Is Jiangnan?
Discussion
February 26, 2025 · SNU Asia Center
Competing Civilizational Discourses of Qing and Japan and the Transformation of East Asian Imperial Order
Paper
Paper & Readings
Presenter: Kim Minsu
Held with a cake to celebrate Kim Minsu's MA graduation.
January 8, 2025 · SNU Asia Center, Rm. 417
Hanjŏng (Leisured Sentiment) and Sŏnch'wi (Taoist-Immortal Taste) in the Prose of Hŏ Kyun — Review of Kim Youngyeon's PhD Dissertation
Paper
Presenter: Kim Youngyeon
December 11, 2024 · SNU Asia Center, Rm. 417
Ming Village Society and the State: Community Schools Reading · The Global Network of Liberty
Paper & Discussion
Readings
  • Sarah Schneewind, Community Schools and the State in Ming China (Stanford UP, 2006)
  • "The Global Network of Liberty: Toward a New Framework for Understanding the History of Political Concepts" (additional discussion paper)
Presenter: Lee Sangmin
August 27, 2024 · Institute of International Affairs, Bldg. 220, Rm. 513
The Invention of the State in the Warring States Period: Rereading the Shangjunshu, Mencius, and Xunzi
Paper
Presentation & Readings
  • Selections from the Shangjunshu (Book of Lord Shang), Mencius, and Xunzi (English translations)
  • Kai Vogelsang, "Getting the Terms Right: Political Realism, Realpolitik, and the Chinese Case" (2016)
  • Session 2 presentation PDF
Presenter: Choi Inho
July 23, 2024 · SNU Kwanjeong Library Seminar Room
Session 1 — Methods of Intellectual History
Inaugural · Methodology
Readings
Inaugural session surveying approaches to intellectual history centered on context, narrative, concept, and material things.

Reading List

리딩 리스트

Intellectual History & Conceptual History: Method

  • J.G.A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, Vol. 2: Narratives of Civil Government (Cambridge UP, 2001)
  • J.G.A. Pocock, "Historiography as a Form of Political Thought"
  • Elías J. Palti, Intellectual History and the Problem of Conceptual Change (Cambridge UP, 2024)
  • Quentin Skinner, Thinking Global Podcast Interview (E-IR, 2024)
  • Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (ch. 8)
  • Kai Vogelsang, "Getting the Terms Right: Political Realism, Realpolitik, and the Chinese Case" (2016)
  • John Tresch, "Technological World-Pictures: Cosmic Things and Cosmograms," Isis 98:1 (2007)
  • "The Global Network of Liberty: Toward a New Framework for Understanding the History of Political Concepts"

Ming-Qing & Chosŏn Village Society and Intellectual History

  • Sarah Schneewind, Community Schools and the State in Ming China (Stanford UP, 2006)
  • Lee Sangmin, "The Deployment of Local Intellectuals and the Moral Edification of Commoners in the 15th Century," Yŏksa wa Hyŏnsil 188 (2020)
  • Lee Sangmin, "The Expansion of Recommendations of Filial Exemplars and Virtue-Centered Personnel Thought in the 15th Century," Sarim 94 (2025)
  • Kim Youngyeon, "The Shifting Meaning of Han [閒] in the Prose of Early-17th-Century Bureaucratic Literati" (2025)

Sino-Korean Relations, the Tributary System & Eurasian Empires

  • Yuri Pines & Michal Biran (eds.), The Limits of Universal Rule: Eurasian Empires Compared (Cambridge UP, 2021)
  • Choi Inho, "Fellow-Sufferers and Coexistence Among Chosŏn Envoys to Qing: Context and Meaning" (2025)
  • Kang Minjung, Primary sources on the late-Chosŏn Bo Yi discourse
  • Kim Youngmin, Article on the Bo Yi discourse (2007)
  • Heo Tae-ku, "King Chŏngjo's Qing Diplomacy and the Coexistence of Loyalty to Ming: Context and Meaning"
  • Yang Nianqun (楊念群), Where Is Jiangnan? Qing Legitimacy, Memory of Conquest, and Jiangnan Literati Society

Modern East Asian International Political Thought

  • Song Jiye, "Diplomatic Tensions between Japan and Russia over the Eulsa Protectorate Treaty: Regarding the Exequatur for the Russian Consul-General in Korea" (manuscript under review, Korean Journal of International Relations)
  • Song Jiye, "The Two Faces of the Postwar Trusteeship System: Spoils of War or Protectorate?" — on the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers (1945) and Korean independence
  • Selections from the Shangjunshu, Mencius, and Xunzi (English translations) — on state-formation thought in the Warring States period
  • Kai Vogelsang, "Getting the Terms Right: Political Realism, Realpolitik, and the Chinese Case" (2016)

AI Research Tools & Digital Humanities

Contact

연락처

For inquiries or to join the reading group, please contact the convener below.

Convener
Choi Inho (최인호)
Affiliation
Institute of International Studies, Seoul National University