Professor in Korean History and Civilization
Office: Asian Centre 223
Phone: 604–822–4478
Email: don.baker@ubc.ca
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He received his Ph.D. in Korean history from the University of Washington and has taught at UBC since 1987. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on Korean history and thought (religion, philosophy, and pre-modern science). In addition, he teaches a graduate seminar on the reproduction of historical trauma in Asia, in which he leads graduate students in an examination of how traumatic events in Asia in the 20th century, such as the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the bombing of Hiroshima, partition of India, China’s Cultural Revolution, and the killing fields of Cambodia have been reproduced in eyewitness accounts, historiography, fiction, and film.
He was a co-editor of the Sourcebook of Korean Civilization and editor of Critical Readings on Korean Christianity. He is also the author of Chosŏn hugi yugyo wa ch’ǒnjugyo ŭi taerip (The Confucian confrontation with Catholicism in the latter half of the Joseon dynasty), published by Iljogak in 1997, Korean Spirituality (University of Hawaii Press, 2008), and Catholics and Anti-Catholicism in Chosŏn Korea (University of Hawaii Press, 2017). He will soon publish How to be Moral, an annotated translation of a commentary by Tasan Chŏng Yagyong on the Zhongyong.
This course is an introduction to how to think philosophically about religion. What is religion? Why are people religious? What is religious experience? Is there a distinct kind of religious knowledge? What arguments can be given for or against the existence of God? What is faith? What is mysticism? What is the relationship between religion and spirituality? Can secular faith replace religion?
