From the Editors

From the Editors We are pleased to bring out the revival issue ofthe Journal ofKorean Studies. The journal, which was started by James Palais at the University ofWashington in the late 1970s, soon gained a reputation as a major English-language periodical on Korea. The high standards set by Palais were maintained during the late 1980s and early 1 990s by Michael Robinson, then at the University of Southern California. From the very beginning, however, thejournal was hampered by a lack of funding and staffing, problems that led to the suspension of publication after volume 8 came out in 1992. Recent generous financial and administrative support from the Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford and the advice and cooperation extended by Rowman & Littlefield have put the journal on a solid foundation and made it possible to resume publication. In earlier years, the journal had a preponderance of historical articles, a trend that reflected the makeup of the field. But Korean studies in the United States, Canada, and Europe have changed greatly since the last issue, with many more scholars working across a much wider range of disciplines. We envision the revived journal as a multidisciplinary publication and encourage submissions from scholars in almost all areas of Korean studies, including— but not limited to—literature, film, and the social sciences. We particularly welcome contributions from junior scholars and advanced graduate students, not only because we feel it our duty to help younger scholars develop their careers but also because we believe that their work is often the kind of "cutting -edge" scholarship that will shape the field in the future. We also welcome submissions from scholars in Korea, Japan, and other locales. It is our intention to maintain the high standards ofscholarly excellence established by earlier editors and to make the Journal ofKorean Studies the premier publication in the field. We hope to promote qualitative growth to match the quantitative growth we have experienced over the past fifteen years. Finally, we would like to express our thanks to the contributors and subscribers who have waited so patiently while we struggled to bring the journal back to life. We would also like to extend our appreciation to the many fine scholars who have agreed, despite their very busy schedules, to serve on our board of editors. —JOHN DUNCAN AND Gl-WOOK SHIN ...