Vladimir Tikhonov (University of Oslo) and Sonja Häussler (Stockholm University) will introduce a new research project jointly conducted with Lim Kyounghwa (Chungang University, Seoul) and Cho Wonhyong (Seoul National University).

The project is designed as an attempt to explore the linkages between a Korean Studies pioneer in Europe and socio-political and intellectual trends in contemporaneous East Asia. The object of our exploration is Cho Seung-bog (1922-2012), one of the key personalities in the development of both Korean and Japanese Studies in Scandinavia. Despite the pioneering status of Cho’s achievements in the fields of both Korean and Japanese phonology and his prominence as Scandinavia’s first-ever full professor of Japanese, there were virtually no research so far dealing in detail with Cho’s academic and political trajectory, including his engagement with Zainichi ethnic Korean community in Japan since the early post-war period, his connections to South Korean democratization movement and his self-positioning in favour of Cold War neutrality, democratization and unified national state-building in divided Korea. Furthermore, nobody so far attempted to explore Cho’s hybridized socio-cultural identity, formed by his ethnic Korean belonging, formative years spent in 1920-30s Manchuria and rigorous academic training in Tokyo and later USA and Sweden. Filling this lacuna, the present project will attempt a multi-faceted analysis of Cho’s highly complex cultural and academic identity and his academic and political trajectory from the 1930-40s and until the post-Cold War period.