[국제]”The Ramsay attack is counterproductive”…”Thesis’Kanto Korean massacre’ modified”

[앵커]

Amidst the ripples surrounding the comfort women dissertation by Professor Mark Ramsayer at Harvard University, a contribution from a domestic professor urging objective research and analysis was published in the US media.

In the midst of this, Professor Ramsey is known to revise the contents of his past thesis that distorted the massacre of Koreans during the Great Kanto Earthquake.

Connect with reporters. Reporter Jo Soo-hyun!

Please tell us in detail the content of the contributions related to Professor Ramsey in the American media.

[기자]

This article was published on the diplomatic journal Diplomat on the 18th local time.

Joe Phillips, associate professor at Yonsei University Underwood International University, and Joseph Lee, associate professor at Hanyang University’s Political Science and Diplomacy, jointly contributed an article titled’Comfort Women and Academic Freedom’ in English.

In their contributions, they argued that attacking Ramsey’s academic integrity for his connection to Japan was counterproductive and sounds like xenophobia.

He added that the accusation of the lack of a Korean perspective in his writings presupposes a victim-centered Korean perspective.

In addition, he pointed out that activist groups have been selectively removing information that does not match their claims, and selecting only information that matches their claims.

In particular, he mentioned the background in which 35 survivors of comfort women accepted compensation payments from the 1 billion yen fund raised by Japan according to the agreement in 2015.

They also made it clear that they were not trying to endorse Ramsey’s writing.

Rather, as a scholar and a Korean resident, I ended the article saying that I wanted to ask for objective research and analysis based on real experiences, not an apology that gives me emotional satisfaction.

[앵커]

Not only is Professor Ramsey’s thesis on comfort women, but other thesis in the past are on the rise.

[기자]

The thesis in question contained a claim that during the Great Kanto Earthquake, Koreans had a tendency to violence and crime, such as arson.

It was announced in 2019 and was scheduled to be published in an academic journal published on the subject of privatization by the University of Cambridge in the UK in August.

Cambridge University said the thesis will be revised drastically.

Alon Harrell, a professor at the Hebrew University of Israel, who served as co-editor of the journal, acknowledged Ramsey’s paper as a “very unfortunate mistake.”

The journal editors said, “I have delivered very specific and critical comments to Professor Ramsey, and accordingly, Professor Ramsey has conveyed his intention to revise the thesis drastically.”

Professor Harrell explained, “I didn’t know the history of the Japanese colonial period very well. After knowing what happened on the Korean peninsula at the time, we took immediate measures to repair the damage.”

So far, the International Department has delivered it.

[저작권자(c) YTN & YTN plus 무단전재 및 재배포 금지]