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Dr Wontack Hong will outline new developments
in the observation of East
Asian History by a new breed of Asian and Western historians and
academics.
As a key proponent himself, Dr Hong has developed new approaches
and
perspectives to these studies. The focus of East Asian history has
traditionally
been on mainland Han Chinese, extending to the north only to the
peoples
of Mongolia and Manchuria. Dr Hong’s central argument is that
it was the
nomadic tribes of the vast geographical area of Central Asia, Japan,
Korea,
China and Mongolia, extending all the way to the Indian sub-continent
in the
South and Turkey in the West, who provided the backbone of the whole
region's cultural development, bringing with it a diffusion of both
Islam and
Buddhism. Dr Hong reassesses East Asian History as a field in its
own right -
rather than the sum of its constituent parts - in order to have
a better
understanding of the region in today’s globalised world.
The author of many books on the history of the region, Dr Hong has
recently
retired from his post as Professor Emeritus at Seoul National University.
His lecture will be followed by a panel discussion lead by Professor
Gina
Barnes of the East Asian Studies Department at Durham and Tineke
D’Haeseleer of Cambridge University.
This event is supported by
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