Admission requirements
Description
Hans J. Morgenthau said in Politics Among Nations, which is regarded as one of the classics in International Relations (IR): “for more than two thousand years the fate of Korea has been a function either of the predominance of one nation controlling Korea, or of a balance of power between two nations competing for that control.” Throughout this account, Korea is completely stripped of its agency. Non-Great Powers such as Korea can hardly have any place or agency in the ‘balance of power’ scheme. This suggests that Great Powers-oriented IR scholarship has a problem in its theoretical point of departure. That is, this scholarship assumes that Great Powers are the only major actors in international politics.
Against this backdrop, the course offers an overview of the historical and contextual development of IR. In Part I, it focuses on historical background and various perspectives including recently emerging approaches in the field of IR. In Part II, the course seeks to situate Korea/Asia within critical and postcolonial IR scholarship.
Course objectives
Obtaining a contextualised knowledge of the field of International Relations
Exploring situated scholarship in Korean Studies
Formulating independent agendas and ideas
Developing writing and presentation skills
Timetable
Mode of instruction
- Seminar
Course Load
Total workload 140 hours;
Contact hours: 2 hours per week X 13 weeks = 26 hours
Preparation: 4 hours per week X 13 weeks = 52 hours
Preparing presentation= 12 hours
Essay: 50 hours
Assessment method
Essay 40%
Presentation 40%
Attendance and participation 20%
Resit: students who fail the course (a grade below a 5.5) may resit the essay if they have participated in the presentation.
Blackboard
Blackboard will be used
Reading list
See blackboard.
Registration
Students are required to register for this course via uSis, the course registration system of Leiden University. General information about the Registration procedure### Registration Studeren à la carte and Contractonderwijs
Registration Studeren à la carte via: www.hum.leidenuniv.nl/onderwijs/alacarte
Registration Contractonderwijs via: http://www.hum.leidenuniv.nl/onderwijs/contractonderwijs/