Studying Korean in a Parisian academic environment

Let’s take a look back at the history of Korean language teaching in Parisian academia. In this article, we take a look at the key players in the creation and development of Korean studies in Paris. Let’s take a look back at the foundations that have made it possible to offer thousands of students the opportunity to study Korean in Paris.

The late arrival of Korean studies in Paris

Korean studies in Paris began about a century late, compared with Sinology (1843) or Japonology (1863). In 1986, Mr. Li Jin-Mieung (1946-2023), a lecturer at Lyon III and Paris VII (now Université Paris-Cité), tried to explain the reasons for this delay.
In his view, for people to take a lasting interest in a foreign country, it must have one of the following three attributes. It must be a great civilization, an economic powerhouse, or have historical or sentimental ties with the other country. For a long time, however, Korea did not meet any of these criteria for France[1].

This is what Maurice Courant (1865-1935), a pioneer of Korean studies in France, emphasized. He said:
“Not so long ago, the name of Korea, apart from a few specialists, aroused in the minds of Westerners only a very vague idea, that of a small country, a peninsula lost at the far end of the Far East, about which little was known except that almost nothing was known[2].

A language long neglected

If we wish to compare Korea with its Chinese or Japanese neighbors, during the 20th century, the latter occupied a far more important place on the world stage. Whether in terms of size or population, China was clearly superior to Korea. It exerted a major influence on its neighboring countries. Japan, on the other hand, was already a renowned military power. It was the first to defeat a Western country during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). By the 1980s, Japan had also become the world’s second-largest economic and technological power. Its economic power was fifteen times greater than that of Korea[3].

If, then, we consider that studies of a country depend on its shared history, or on its cultural and economic importance, then neither Korea’s historical or sentimental ties, nor its power to influence , justified studying this country in France until the middle of the 20th century.

The creation of the Korean Studies Section in Paris

In France, and more specifically in Paris, the teaching of Korean began in January 1956. The creation of Korean studies was primarily the initiative of Charles Haguenauer (1896-1976). He was a specialist in the language and history of Japan, and a professor at the Sorbonne. He became interested in Korea in 1922, and published several articles on the country. Charles Haguenauer subsequently established relations with Korean researchers. Through one of them, he met Li Ogg (1928-2001). Li Ogg was an assistant professor of Western history at Yonsei University in Seoul.

In 1955, Professor Charles Haguenauer was head of the newly-created Japanese department at the Sorbonne[4]. He immediately had the idea of opening a Korean language course in this section. This is how he came to think of his Korean correspondent Li Ogg. After much lobbying, he succeeded in getting Li Ogg to come to Paris. As a result, Li Ogg was able to give his first Korean course at the Sorbonne on January 25, 1956.

The difficult beginnings of Korean language teaching

Only two Japanese students attended the first courses. This was not because they wanted to, but because Charles Haguenauer had advised them to attend[5]. Other students joined them, but the numbers remained small. During the first ten years, no more than a dozen students took Korean classes.

In the 1970s, for example, an average of 10 to 15 students enrolled for Korean courses, but only 3 or 4 completed their three-year course. If we compare this number with the number of Japanese students at the same time, the figures are surprisingly similar. Indeed, Mori Arimasa (1911-1976), a reader of Japanese, wrote in his diary that the number of students attending his classes varied between 7 and 13 over the period 1956 to 1965[6].

What’s different, however, is that learning Korean was a secondary choice for students of Chinese or Japanese. Indeed, it was customary in those days for students who studied one Oriental language to study a second. As a result, for many years the teaching of Korean was reserved for a small group of people, due to lack of resources and demand.

The evolution of the Korean Studies section in Paris

On January 17, 1959, the Faculty Assembly approved the proposal put forward by Charles Haguenauer for the creation of a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Korean. On June 1 of the same year, a ministerial decree authorized the Faculty to award this certificate under the title “Certificat d’études supérieures de langues vivantes, mention ‘études coréennes’”[7]. Korean thus became officially recognized as one of the seventeen foreign languages taught at the Faculty. The first post-graduate diploma in Korean was awarded in 1962 by student André Fabre (1932-2009). It was not until 1966 that a second diploma was awarded to student Marc Orange (1937-2023).

In 1969, what had been called the “Section d’Etudes Japonaises” was renamed the “Section d’Etudes Japonaises et Coréennes”. Charles Haguenauer was its director. In 1970, this section was split into the Korean Studies Section and the Japanese Studies Section. Together with the Chinese Studies Section, they were attached to the University of Paris VII[8] in the same year. This new recognition of Korean studies is partly due to Korea’s particularly rapid development from the 1970s onwards. Its economic development and the industrialization of the country led to the beginnings of an interest in Korean studies in Paris.

The creation of the Center for Korean Studies (CEC)

In October 1959, the Centre d’Etudes Coréennes was created at the University of Paris. It was the initiative of Professor Charles Haguenauer, who headed it until 1970, when he was succeeded by Li Ogg. The center’s mission was described by Charles Haguenauer in a note to the Korean Embassy in Paris. He explained that the center’s aim was to develop Franco-Korean cultural relations. It also aimed to support the arrival of Korean researchers in France and to maintain links between French and Korean universities. Finally, he wanted to promote the study of Korean language, literature and civilization. In his view, this would also encourage publications on Korea in France[9].

As with the Section d’Etudes Coréennes, the CEC got off to a difficult start due to a lack of resources, staff and space. Marc Orange was in charge of the Centre’s physical operations in 1986. He explained that, at its inception, the Center had no premises of its own. It had to make do with a cupboard in the visitors’ room[10].

In 1968, the CEC obtained premises at 22 avenue du Président Wilson in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, within the Maison des Instituts d’Extrême-Orient. In 1973, it became part of the Collège de France[11]. The library grew steadily, thanks to donations, acquisitions and shipments from Korean institutions. This improvement in resources, combined with the agreement signed in 1978 between the Korean Embassy in Paris and the Collège de France to train specialists in Korean studies and conduct research on contemporary Korea[12], enabled the Centre d’Etudes Coréennes to publish nine scientific works between 1979 and 1986, and a further nine between 1986 and 2001[13].

The Korean Studies Section at the University of Paris VII

As we have already seen, the Japanese and Korean Studies Section split in two in 1970. Together with the Chinese and Vietnamese Studies Sections, they were attached to the University of Paris VII.

This followed the student protests of May 1968 and the subsequent crisis in higher education. The post-war generation was studying longer. As a result, the number of students wishing to go to university had greatly increased. However, the University of Paris remained the only university in the capital. It could no longer accommodate the number of students, which had doubled in 10 years. So, on November 12, 1968, the French law on higher education reorganized the University of Paris. Thus, in 1970, the Far Eastern studies sections of the former Faculté des Lettres de l’Université de Paris were attached to Paris VII under the UFR LCAO[14]. At the same time, specialization in Korean became a national diploma (licence, master, doctorate)[15].

When the Section d’Etudes Coréennes became part of Paris VII, Li Ogg became its director. Marc Orange, who had been Li Ogg’s pupil, was the first to assist him as a lecturer. By 1985, there was one professor, one lecturer and thirty students[16].

The Korean Studies Section at INALCO

INALCO (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales) is an institution dedicated to higher education and research in languages and civilizations other than those of Western Europe. Initially, INALCO was attached to the Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III). It was subsequently placed under the direct supervision of the French Ministry of Education on January 22, 1985. The study of Korean began in 1959, becoming the 42nd language taught at the school. Together with the University of Paris VII, INALCO forms the basis for the teaching of Korean at French universities.

At the beginning of the 20th century, INALCO had just ten students. In the second half of the century, it averaged 7,000 to 8,000 students. More than half were enrolled in Chinese or Japanese. The remainder were enrolled in some forty languages. In 1960, only three students were enrolled in the Korean Studies section. This number gradually increased, and by 1986, for example, there were 49 students enrolled in this section[17]. Li Ogg began teaching there in 1959, and was succeeded by André Fabre in 1969. The latter became director of the Korea-Japan Department and head of the Korean Studies Section.

The CNRS Korean Studies Section

Last but not least, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) is a pioneer of Korean studies in the academic world in Paris. Founded in 1939, the CNRS covers the entire spectrum of basic research in France. In 1984, it employed some 9880 researchers[18], demonstrating its major importance in the research community. In 1980, three researchers were primarily and permanently involved in Koreanology. They were Marc Orange (from 1965), Daniel Bouchez (1928-2014; from 1972) and Alexandre Guillemoz (1941-2021; from 1979). They belonged to Section 44, known as Langues et Civilisations Orientales. Daniel Bouchez was mainly a specialist in classical literature and Korean philology. Marc Orange was a Korean literature specialist and historian. Alexandre Guillemoz was an ethnologist and anthropologist. Before them, there had been no permanent researchers specializing in Korea at the CNRS.

Teaching Korean since the 2000s

Today, many primary and secondary schools offer Korean studies in Paris and the Paris region. We can see that they are not concentrated in any particular area. What’s more, it is now possible to take a Korean studies course as early as junior high or high school (since 2011[19]). Korean studies can also be taken at a variety of higher education and/or research establishments. These include Université Paris-Cité (Paris VII), INALCO, Collège de France, CNRS, Sciences-Po, ENS, EHESS and Ecole Française d’Extrême Orient.

The number of students studying Korean studies, as well as university literary resources, has increased dramatically. For example, in 2019, at the Université Paris Diderot (Paris VII), there were nine lecturers and 350 students in Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD programs. There was already a specialized library and a Korean collection of 15,000 volumes[20]. At INALCO, the same growth trend was observed, with six lecturers and 535 undergraduate and graduate students in 2019. There was also a specialized library with a Korean collection of 9,000 volumes[21].

Conclusion

Korean in the academic world during the previous century seemed to be booming. However, specialists were few and far between, numbering no more than a dozen. And for a long time, the resources allocated to Korean sections were minimal.

It took almost thirty years from the creation of Korean Studies in 1956 to its stabilization in the 1980s for a larger number of students interested in the study of Korea to emerge. However, the number of students each year, whether at Paris VII or INALCO, hardly exceeded fifty. More often than not, this figure oscillated between 20 and 30 students. What’s more, until the 2000s and the Korean economic and cultural boom, the choice of studying Korean was more often than not a complement to, or a continuation of, studies of Japan or China.

Today, however, Korean has become a much sought-after language. Every year, hundreds of students enroll in public and private institutions across France.

Addenda

[1] LI, Jin-Mieung, “30 ans d’études coréennes en France, 1956-1986 : Institution, équipe, organisation des études”, in Culture coréenne, Centre Culturel Coréen, Octobre 1986, n°13, p. 20.

[2] Ibid, p. 20.

[3] Ibid, p. 21.

[4] At the time, the Sorbonne was the Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines. It was one of the five faculties of the University of Paris, the only Parisian university until 1968.

[5] LI, Jin-Mieung, op. cit. in Culture coréenne, p. 22.

[6] Ibid. p. 22.

[7] Ibid, p. 22.

[8] Université Paris VII, also known as Université de Paris Diderot, was renamed Université Paris-Cité on March 4, 2022 (Paris-Descartes and Paris-Diderot merged on January 1, 2020).

[9] LI, Jin-Mieung, op. cit. in Culture coréenne, p. 22-23.

[10] Ibid. p. 23

[11] ORANGE, Marc, “Centre d’études coréenne du Collège de France?”, in Culture Coréenne, Centre Culturel Coréen, 2001, n°58, p. 20.

[12] Ibid. p. 20.

[13] The first datum is provided by LI, Jin-Mieung, op. cit. in Culture coréenne, p. 23. The second datum is provided by ORANGE, Marc, op. cit. p. 21.

[14] The UFR LCAO (Unité de formation et de recherche – Langues et civilisations de l’Asie Orientale) brings together the Sorbonne’s Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese sections.

[15] KIM, Jin-Ok, “L’enseignement du coréen en France : continuité du développement et élargissement du public”, in Livre Blanc des études coréennes en France, Réseau des Etudes sur la Corée, 2019, p. 35.

[16] ARCHIVES DU MINISTERE DES AFFAIRES ETRANGERES, Compte rendu des relations culturelles entre la France et la Corée, 1985, ” 5.2 Relations culturelles avec la France “, 1980 – 1986, carton 3021, Asie-Océanie, Corée du Sud 1980-1986 (2882TOPO).

[17] ARCHIVES DU MINISTERE DES AFFAIRES ETRANGERES, Note for Mr. De Lipkowski on cooperation policy with Korea, September
sujet de la politique de coopération avec la Corée, September 3, 1986, Ibid.

[18] LI, Jin-Mieung, op. cit. in Culture coréenne, p. 30.

[19] This was made possible by the creation of AFELACC (Association française des enseignants de langue et culture coréenne) on June 13, 2009. Their mission was to obtain subsidies from the French and Korean Ministries of Education in order to gradually introduce the teaching of Korean into the curriculum of high schools and colleges in France. To this end, they organized Korean culture workshops in schools. LI, Jin Mieung, op. cit. 2016, p. 33-34.

[20] BRUNETON, Yannick, “Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7 (UPD), UFR LCAO section d’études coréennes”, in Livre Blanc des études coréennes en France, Réseau des Etudes sur la Corée, 2019, p. 50.

[21] KIM, Daeyeol, THEVENET, Stéphane, “Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Inalco), Département d’études coréennes”, in Livre Blanc des études coréennes en France, Réseau des Etudes sur la Corée, 2019, p. 55.

Bibliography

LI, Jin-Mieung, “30 ans d’études coréennes en France, 1956-1986 : Institution, équipe, organisation des études”, in Culture coréenne, Centre Culturel Coréen, Octobre 1986, n°13, p.13-37.

ORANGE, Marc, “Centre d’études coréenne du Collège de France?”, in Culture Coréenne, Centre Culturel Coréen, 2001, n°58, p. 18-21.

RESCOR, White Paper on Korean Studies in France, Korea Studies Network, Edita,
2019, 198 p.

Sources

ARCHIVES DU MINISTERE DES AFFAIRES ETRANGERES, Compte rendu des relations culturelles entre la France et la Corée.1985, ” 5.2 Relations culturelles avec la France “, 1980 – 1986, carton 3021, Asie-Océanie, Corée du Sud 1980-1986 (2882TOPO).