Introduction

Hi,

I’m new to the blog, and just wanted to introduce myself.  I just completed a Ph. D. in the History of Science (2007) on the formation of “state science” in the ROK. 

I’m primarily a Historian of Science / Medicine, with a significant investment in East Asia (South Korea and Japan). I recently started at NUS (National University of Singapore), and will be teaching in the former area (Social History of Disease), while assisting with the latter as we offer our first Korean History classes in Spring 2009. NUS also hired two language lecturers for Korean, and appears to be quite motivated about getting involved with Korean Studies.

In terms of interests, this translates into spending a lot of time in hospitals, and I’m currently working on a book project about the formation / tranformation of a South Korean health care system following the war (1945-1972).

I’m also interested in the messy “in-between” years of about 1945-1965 in terms of the transformation of Korean technology and material culture (engineering, agriculture, the transition from the electrical grid to nuclear power by the late 1970’s), but run into frequent limitations here in terms of a lack of documents.

In any case, I’ll be posting again soon, and look forward to participating–you can also find me at:

  http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/hist/hisjpd.htm

John