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.