Salameno School of American and International Studies (SSAIS)

Associate Professor of History

Year Joined RCNJ: 2007

Contact Information:

• Phone: (201) 684-7216
• E-mail: tkwak@ramapo.edu 
• Office: A-208
• Office Hrs: TWF 1:00-2:00pm
• Personal Website 

Education:

• B.A. University of Chicago
• M.A. University of Chicago
• A.M. Harvard University
• Ph.D. Harvard University

Courses Offered:

• Korean Cinema and Modern Society
• The Korean War and the Indochina Wars
• Modern Korea and the World
• Introduction to East Asian Civilizations
• The United States and East Asia
• Japan: Early Civilization to Modern Revolution
• Historiography
• World Civilizations

Teaching Interests:

• Modern and Premodern Korean History
• Modern Japanese History
• US Diplomatic History
• East Asian Intellectual History
• Cold War History
• Comparative Colonial History
   

Research Interests:

• Modern Korean History
• The Vietnam War
• Nation-Building
• Democratization
   

Recent Publications:

• Selling the Korean War: Propaganda, politics, and public opinion, 1950-1953 by S. Casey. Journal of world history 20(3): 558-560.
• Building Ships, Building a Nation: Korea’s Democratic Unionism under Park Chung Hee by H. Nam. Journal of Korean studies 15(1): 123-125.
• “The clash of civilizations: Obfuscating race, history, and culture in ‘300.’” In The Americanization of history: Conflation of time and culture in film and television, ed. Kathleen McDonald.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 192-211.
• “The Republic of Korea in Southeast Asia: Expanding influences and relations.” In Korea’s changing roles in Southeast Asia, ed. David I. Steinberg, 304-324. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
• Forthcoming. Korean-Vietnamese relations since the Vietnam War.
• Korea's changing roles in Southeast Asia: Expanding Influence and Relations, ed. David I. Steinberg. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
• Forthcoming. The Nixon Doctrine and the Yusin Reforms: American Foreign Policy, the Vietnam War, and the Rise of Authoritarianism in Korea, 1968-1973. Journal of American-East Asian Relations.
• Koreagate and the Vietnam War.Center for Korean Studies, Kyushu National University (Japan).
• Belief and Betrayal: Koreagate and Korean-American Relations in the 1970s.
• 2009. ROK-Vietnamese relations since the Vietnam War. Korea's changing roles in Southeast Asia: Expanding Influence and Relations, ed. David I. Steinberg. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
• 2008. The Nixon Doctrine and the Yusin reforms: American foreign policy, the Vietnam War, and the rise of authoritarianism in Korea, 1968-1973. Journal of American-East Asian Relations 12(1-2): 33-57.