Marie Seong-Hak Kim

Professor Kim received her B.A. and M.A. degrees in history from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea.  She received her Ph.D. in history in 1991 from the University of Minnesota and her J.D. in 1994 from the University of Minnesota Law School.  Before joining the faculty at St. Cloud State University in Fall 2000, Professor Kim taught at the University of Louisville in Kentucky and the Korean University of Foreign Studies in Seoul.  Her prior non-teaching experience ranges from working as a reporter at The Korea Times (Seoul) to practicing law as an attorney.  She is an active member of the Minnesota Bar. 

 

During her sabbatical year (2007-2008), Professor Kim served as Visiting Professor at the Institut d'Asie Orientale at École Normale Supérieure in Lyon, France, and an affiliated fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) in Leiden, the Netherlands.  She was the grantee of the Japan Foundation Short-Term Research Fellowship (2008-2009), and the Academy of Korean Studies Research Fellowship (2007-2008).  During the 2004-2005 academic year, she was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in South Korea, and taught as Fulbright Visiting Professor of Law at Handong Global University in Pohang. 

 

Professor Kim’s recent research has focused on comparative legal history.  She is particularly interested in the development of Korean civil law under Japanese colonial rule.  Her recent publications in this area during the past year include “Customary Law and Colonial Jurisprudence in Korea,” The American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 57, No. 1 (2009); "Law and Custom under the Chosŏn Dynasty and Colonial Korea: A Comparative Perspective," The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 66, No. 4 (2007); and “Ume Kenjirō and the Making of Korean Civil Law, 1906-1910,” The Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2008).  She is also the author of "比較史的側面からみた梅謙次郎の法思想と朝鮮における民法典構想の意義" [Ume Kenjiro's Legal Thought and Legislative Vision: Some Comparative Reflections],  東洋文化硏究 [Tōyō Bunka Kenkyū], Vol. 10 (March 2008).  Tōyō Bunka Kenkyū is published by Gakushuin University's Research Institute for Oriental Studies.  Her article, "Colonial Courts and Custom: Comparative Reflections on Customary Law and Colonial Modernity in Korea," was published in the International Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter, Vol. 46, Spring 2008.  Her newest publication, "Comparing the Incomparable: Local Custom and Law in Sixteenth-Century Korea and France," will appear in The Journal of Early Modern History in 2009. 

Originally trained as a sixteenth-century French historian, Professor Kim continues writing in French history.  Her book, Michel de L’Hôpital: the Vision of a Reformist Chancellor during the French Religious Wars, was published in 1997.  Her most recent article, “Civil Law and Civil War: Michel de L’Hôpital and the Ideals of Legal Unification in Sixteenth-Century France,” is slated to appear in Law and History Review in 2010.  Other recent publications in this field include “Christophe de Thou et la réformation des coutumes: l’esprit de réforme juridique au XVIe siPcle,” Tijdschrift voor rechtsgeschiedenis (The Legal History Review), Vol. 72 (2004); “Custom, Community, and the Crown: Lawyers and the Reordering of French Customary Law,” in Charles H. Parker and Jerry H. Bentley, eds., Between the Middle Ages and Modernity: Individual and Community in the Early Modern World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007); "Michel de L'Hospital et les essais d'unification du droit civil" (a related French newspaper article), Le Chancelier Michel de L'hospital, Actes du colloque de Riom, 8 et 9 septembre 2006, Revue d'Auvergne, Vol. 120, No. 581 (2007); and "Murders for Love: Imperial Japan Meets Bourbon France," H-Net Book Review (2006). 

Professor Kim is a frequent speaker across the world.  She gave lectures at the Ecole des Haute Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, Institut d'Asie Orientale (IAO), Lyon, and the University of Paris IV (Sorbonne) in France.  She also presented lectures at the Maison franco-japonaise日仏会館, Tokyo, and Gakushuin University, Tokyo, in June 2008.

She is currently working on a book manuscript on a comparative history of customary law.   

 

 

Professor Kim’s Course List

 

Professor Marie S. Kim, Ph.D., J.D.
Office: Stewart Hall 282
Phone: 320-308-4100
            320-308-3165 (History Department)
e-mail: mkim@stcloudstate.edu


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Last Updated on 04/19/2009
By MSHK