New Attempts In Trouble

Abstract

This article tries to introduce the research trends of the past two years. This article focuses on three major features of recent research trends, entrusting details to the researchers from each period. The three major features are as follows: first, the field of socioeconomic history is generally shrinking and macroscopic approaches are becoming harder to apply; second, the limits and possibilities of using materials is emerging; third, the methodologies of ‘East Asian History’ or ‘Transnational History’ show both significances and difficulties in terms of choosing their subject of research. On the first feature I think there were three ways that modern historical studies dealt with a series of problems. One way was to both rationalize existing systems and consolidate their foundations. Another way revealed the mechanisms of power that were exercised over every layer of society, overcoming the crude discourse of class struggle. And another, qualitatively different approach, was to evade serious questions and settle on the field of discourse. On the second feature I argue that many hardships remain in accessing some materials, especially when they are related to key interests of nations and people in power. This fact is immediately met with assertions that researchers are able to utilize materials on-line with the development of digitalization, and that one cannot blame the status of materials for his/her state of research. On the third feature I worry that historians are not prepared to render a striking change in the dominant paradigm. Of course there are certainly a great number of attempts to make a breakthrough in the academia of Korean History. However, audacious challenges against the existing macroscopic discourses are not easy to find. The strenuous efforts of ‘Transnational History’ to overcome the modern historiography is worth further investigation, but I do not see it as a successful alternative to previous efforts because thus far they have failed to acquire the relevance of ‘National History.’