My third semester of graduate school, I really hit the books.

My third semester of graduate school truly was one of the most stressful times of my life, if we’re going to be honest.

I had taken on a six month internship with the Smithsonian, and I was working two full days there a week, and was planning to take three classes on top of the jobs I already had before accepting this internship.

A girl’s gotta make her coin, especially considering I did not take out any loans for me to attend my master’s degree. I was paying my way through this program.

Anyways, I took three classes.

That’s the standard in my program, and I took a political science based course on Nationalism and Sovereignty, a literature class called The Traveler, and then I had a self designed independent study on colonial Korean women’s literature and the art produced during that time.

That was a history and literature course mixed together, so when I was sitting down to my homework each week, I had about 500 pages of literature to read.

I thought to make this blog post to outline some of the fascinating books I’ve read during this time, as I believe academic scholarship should be open to everyone, not just those who are paying to be a part of the system.

In my political science nationalism course, we read a lot of theory.

So what the crux of this class was basically about was that we were doing high level theory work on nationalism and sovereignty. This kind of was a crash course on the subject, as none of us had this kind of background, and then we designed a project and final paper, which amounted to around twenty-five pages, on a subject of our choosing.

I chose Kashmir and Tibet, and my argument was basically saying that because of external forces pushing in, it expedites the process of what Benedict Anderson calls an “imagined community,” pushing unlike people together against settler colonial and hostile governments.

This is what I read for the class:

The Nationalist Revival: Trade, Immigration, and the Revolt Against Globalization by John B. Judis. We opened the class with this text, and the whole gist of the book is arguing that the world is now leaning towards fascism and rightwing politics. Judis uses the examples of the West and the United States to show how this is happening, and how globalization is depicted as a bad thing because it causes people in like the Midwest to blame politics as to why their factory jobs were moved overseas.
Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity by Liah Greenfeld. This is such dense text to get through, but I generally enjoyed it once I got the hang of how Greenfeld operates. Basically, she uses five case studies (England, France, Germany, Russia, and the US) and shows us how the process of identity building happened and these countries forced a sense of nationalism. She argues that England was the first modern state, starting in the Tudor Period, and shows the ripple effects across each case study and how they get to be where they are today.
Tibet: A History Between Dream and Nation-State by Paul Christiaan Klieger. This formed the crux of my argument for my final paper. It’s basically an overview of Tibetan history and how the Tibetan resistance today came to be. This was really fascinating to read, and I will probably buy a copy of this for my own collections.
Sovereignty: The Evolution of an Idea by Robert Jackson. Essentially, this is Jackson tracing ideas of sovereignty throughout the Western world. It compliments well with the next reading, which is…
Sovereignty, RIP by Don Herzog. Herzog argues against the term sovereignty from a modern sense, as he’s saying it’s such an outdated term and that it never benefits the people. He opens with this bloody example as to why this is the case, which is a major point to start off with. If you can’t handle extreme violence, this book’s intro is going to get you hard.

In The Traveler, we looked at narratives of forced migration across the Atlantic Slave Trade and its history.

This was such a fascinating course to me, as I never thought to use travel literature and its memories to look at the Slave Trade in such a way. A lot of the books we read in this course were a mix between Black perspectives on it, as well as the white people involved with the trade—one week we literally had to read the diaries of plantation owners, which was such a trip to look back on because of how disgusting they could be. Here’s what we read in this class.

Travels Into the Interior Districts of Africa by Mungo Park. A white guy, his binoculars, and a hat wandering through Africa for the source of a river. This is the book that helped people end up arguing as to why we needed slavery (boo).
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Equiano. A slave narrative written by a guy who later came to England and was freed. A chunk of this is him recalling life at sea and how he discovered God.
The History of Mary Prince by Mary Prince. Another slave narrative, but by a woman named Mary Prince. She doesn’t sugarcoat like Equiano does at times, and her story can be very unsettling to read throughout its short pages.
Obi; Or, the History of Three Fingered Jack by William Earle. A fictional take where a guy writes letters to his friends about the exploits of three-fingered Jack, who is now a Jamaican folk hero. I found this to be the most painful book to read, if we’re going to be honest.
Tell My Horse: Life and Voodoo in Jamaica and Haiti by Zora Neale Hurston. This is an anthropological account of Hurston’s time in Haiti and Jamaica learning about Voodoo. Lots to think about in this one, that’s for sure.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. A novel, and the only one we read this semester. It starts with two half sisters who’ve never met, and how their bloodlines grow independent of each other. One is taken to be a slave in the Americas, while the other marries a British governor.

My independent study focused heavily on Korean women’s literature.

This class formed the crux of my thesis, as I kind of already had the sense I wanted to do something Korean related going into my second semester when it came to my thesis. I designed the syllabus for this course, so what I wanted to read is what we ended up doing.

It was fascinating in the end, and had convinced me I had made the right decision. These women truly were radical for their period!

Questioning Minds by Yung-hee Kim. This compiled short stories from the period and beyond—many of which did not have online translations. A truly useful tool right here.
On the Eve of the Uprising, translated by Sun-young Park. Another collection of colonial short stories, except by men.
The Novel in Transition by Joo-yeon Rhee; Rhee’s work and articles I looked a lot at during my time doing research, as she is one of the more active ones publishing on this subject. This book provided a good overview of the period and what women’s literature was capable of.
The Life and Works of Korean Poet Kim Myeong-sun by Choi Jung Ja. This formed the thesis of my paper, and if it weren’t so expensive, I would buy a personal copy of this book. Absolutely incredible overview of her life and work, as Kim was highly radical and doing confessional and #MeToo years before anyone else.
Writing Women in Korea by Theresa Hyun. I read this for my decolonization class a bit ago, but it’s an excellent overview of the period in general and women writers and translation. It paired really well towards what short stories I’d been reading for class.

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