Summary
Eugene Y. Park is a historian of East Asia, especially Korean politics and society from the fifteenth to the early twentieth century. After studying at UCLA and Harvard, Park completed a postdoc with the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale and has held faculty appointments at the University of California, Irvine, the University of Pennsylvania and The University of Nevada, Reno. Park has taught at Harvard, Korea, McGill, Seoul National, and Yonsei, as well as giving some 70 invited lectures, speeches, or presentations, including the 26th Annual Stanley Spector Memorial Lecture on East Asian History and Civilization at Washington University in St. Louis (2019). He is the author of five books and is also interested in genealogy, population genetics, primatology, portraiture and religious studies. Various high-profile projects have consulted with him, including Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (PBS) and Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). In 2016, Park co-chaired the organizing committee of the Eighth Biennial World Congress of Korean Studies.
Research interests
- Korea and East Asia
- Sociopolitical history
- Deep history
- Genealogy
- Population genetics
Books
- Korea: A History. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2022
- A Genealogy of Dissent: The Progeny of Fallen Royals in Chosŏn Korea. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018
- Peace in the East: An Chunggŭn’s Vision for Asia in the Age of Japanese Imperialism. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2017. Edited with Yi Tae-Jin and Kirk W. Larsen
- A Family of No Prominence: The Descendants of Pak Tŏkhwa and the Birth of Modern Korea. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014
- Between Dreams and Reality: The Military Examination in Late Chosŏn Korea, 1600–1894. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007
Courses taught
- HIST 209: World History II
- HIST 211: History of East Asia I
- HIST 306: History of Korea
- HIST 488C/688C: Topics in Nature and Culture: Genes, Environment, and Global History
- HIST 705: Graduate Readings in History
Education
- Ph.D., East Asian languages and civilizations, Harvard University, 1999
- A.M., regional studies East Asia, Harvard University, 1993
- B.A., history, University of California, Los Angeles, 1991