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Tae Yang Kwak

Associate Professor of History

Year Joined RCNJ: 2007

Contact Information

  • Phone: (201) 684-7216
  • Email: tkwak@ramapo.edu
  • Office: A-208
  • Office Hours: TWF 10:30-11:30 am

Education:

  • B.A. University of Chicago
  • M.A. University of Chicago
  • A.M. Harvard University
  • Ph.D. Harvard University

Courses Offered:

  • Korean Cinema and Modern Society
  • The Korean War and the Indochina Wars
  • Modern Korea and the World
  • Introduction to East Asian Civilizations
  • The United States and East Asia
  • Japan: Early Civilization to Modern Revolution
  • Historiography
  • World Civilizations

Teaching Interests:

  • Modern and Premodern Korean History
  • Modern Japanese History
  • US Diplomatic History
  • East Asian Intellectual History
  • Cold War History
  • Comparative Colonial History

Research Interests:

  • Modern Korean History
  • The Vietnam War
  • Nation-Building
  • Democratization

Scholarly Activity:

Articles & Book Chapters
  • “The Vietnam War, Protest, and Democratization in South Korea.”  In Protest in the Vietnam War Era, ed. Alexander Sedlmaier. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
  • “Han’guk ŭi Betŭnam chŏnjaeng chaep’ŏngga [Reevaluating Korean Participation in the Vietnam War].” Yŏksa pip’yŏng [Critical Review of History] 107 (Summer 2014): 202-232.
  • “The Clash of Civilizations: Obfuscating Race, History, and Culture in ‘300.’”  In The Americanization of History: Conflation of Time and Culture in Film and Television, ed. Kathleen McDonald, 192-211.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011.
  • “The Republic of Korea in Southeast Asia: Expanding Influences and Relations.”  In Korea’s Changing Roles in Southeast Asia, ed. David I. Steinberg, 304-324.  Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009.
  • “The Nixon Doctrine and the Yusin Reforms: American Foreign Policy, the Vietnam War, and the Rise of Authoritarianism in Korea, 1968-1973.”  Journal of American-East Asian Relations 12.1-2 (2003): 33-57.
Translations
  • “Five Poems by Jang Jung Il.”  In Azalea: A Journal of Korean Literature and Culture 2, 253-270. Cambridge, MA: Korea Institute, Harvard University, 2008.
  • “Five Poems by Kang Ŭn-gyo.”  In The Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry, ed. David R. McCann, 225-230.  New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
Dissertation
  • The Anvil of War: The Legacies of Korean Participation in the Vietnam War.  PhD diss., Harvard University, 2006.
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