Seoul Colloquium in Korean Studies
(Organized by the Seoul Center of the ÉFEO and RAS Korea)

Charles Dallet’s 1874 “History of the Korean Church”: Celebrating the 150th Anniversary

SPEAKER: Brother Anthony

The May session of the Colloquium will be held at 6 pm on Thursday May 23 in the Grand Conference Room (Room number 310), of the Asiatic Research Institute, Korea University, beginning at 6:00 pm

All who wish to participate are asked to register in advance by sending an email to efeoseoul@hotmail.com

DATE: Thursday. May 23, 2024. 6:00PM

VENUE: Grand Conference Room (#310), of the Asiatic Research Institute, Korea University

[Take Exit 1 from Korea University subway station, turn right onto the footpath leading up onto the campus. Walk straight up the road past LG Posco Hall, the Business School and Main Library (all on the right hand side). The Asiatic Research Institute is the building next after the Library (Building 39 on the Campus Map http://oia.korea.ac.kr/listener.do?layout=itd_4_1 )

After 6 pm the front door of the Institute may be locked. If the door is locked, phone to the EFEO Seoul Center (02-921-4526) so that we can let you into the building.]

SUMMARY: 

150 years ago, in 1874, the two volumes of Charles Dallet’s Histoire de l’Eglise de Corée were published in Paris. The first two hundred pages of Volume 1 offered an overview in fifteen chapters of “the History, Institutions, Language, Morals and Customs of Korea.” The body of the two volumes then covered the history of the Catholic Church in Korea, from the beginning in 1784 until the violent persecution of 1866 with its sequel in the brief French occupation of Ganghwa Island. Dallet’s book was the first book solely about Korea to be published in the West after the accounts based on Hamel’s Journal, published before and after 1700. Yet Dallet had never been in or near Korea, his book is a compilation based on the archival material at his disposal. Brother Anthony will celebrate Dallet’s brief life and propose an analysis of the various sources he used to write such a massive and vivid account of a Church which was founded without foreign missionaries and mostly ran itself while facing relentless persecution.

BIO:

Brother Anthony, a British-born member of the Community of Taizé (France), came to Korea in 1980 and is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Sogang University. He has published many translations of modern Korean poetry and fiction. He is President Emeritus of RAS Korea. He is preparing an annotated English translation of Dallet’s History, having recently published English translations of the Latin letters by Saint Kim Dae-geon and Choe Yang-eop.

We hope that as many as possible of you can join us for this event.

Élisabeth Chabanol, Head of the Seoul Center, French School of Asian Studies/École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO)

Brother Anthony, President Emeritus, Royal Asiatic Society Korea