4 pages 8 hours

Paper Assignment for Lost Names

The essay is your critical analysis and reaction, not a summary of the book. It must be at least 5-6 pages in length. Citations used within the paper should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style format. Any late essays will be marked down 10 points for each calendar day late (i.e. after one day, an 85 (B) becomes an 75 (C), etc.). Papers will be marked down for mistakes and improper grammar so please leave enough time to proofread your paper before turning it in. Moreover, and this holds true for all the courses you take, plagiarism is a very serious academic offense, which will result in penalties ranging from reduction of class grade to failure in the course. Plagiarism occurs when the ideas and words, published or unpublished, of others are presented as one’s own without citing the original source. Plagiarism also occurs when the papers, research, or works of another person are presented as one’s own work.

You will be rewarded (your lowest quiz grade will be dropped) if you submit a draft of your paper to the Academic Center (McEntegart Hall in Room 306!) And it is most certain that by doing so, you will receive a better grade on your paper anyway. Details to follow.

Questions (please answer one of the following):

1. In interviews, Kim stated, “One exception I take is to anyone who says it (Lost Names) is anti-Japanese. It’s not; there are some bad Japanese characters in the book, but it is not anti-Japanese.” Do you agree or disagree? Why?

2. In another interview, Kim explained, “Everything in the book actually happened. It happened to me. So why am I always insisting it’s not autobiographical? I think because of the way I used the things that actually happened. You have to arrange them, mix them up. Above all, it’s interpretation of facts, of actual events—some thirty or forty years later. “ How do we process the information Kim offers? Is the narrator’s experience representative of the Korean experience?  Would Pumpkin, for example, have written a very different book?

3. “The real force of colonization comes not through physical coercion, but through psychological, educational, and cultural manipulation.” Argue in support of or against this statement using evidence from Korea’s colonial period as you have come to understand it through lecture, your readings in the textbook, and especially Lost Names.

4. Speaking in 1950, a Korean industrialist commented that "numerous revolutionists and nationalists" had returned to Korea after the Pacific War and had stirred up anti-Japanese feeling, but today "there is hardly any trace of it." Korea and Japan "are destined to go hand-in-hand, to live and let live," so bad feelings should be "cast overboard." Today "an economic unity is lacking, whereas in prewar days Japan, Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan economically combined to make an organic whole." (From Bruce Cumings, The Korean War: A History, pg. 8.)

How do you think this quote relates to what you learned in class, in your readings and in Lost Names?