Isabelle Sancho

Between ideological norms and literary motives: modes and expression of interreligious contacts in the writings of Yulgok, Yi I (1536-1584)." The beginnings of the Yi dynasty in Korea is often regarded as synonymous with a very special moment in Korean history: the progressive "triumph" of Neo-Confucianism over Buddhism as the state ideology, a process leading to what has been called the Confucianization of Chosŏn Korea. Besides, the 16 th century is commonly seen as a turning point in intellectual history, notably because of the blossoming of two major icons of Korean Neo-Confucianism, T'oegye 退溪 Yi Hwang 李滉 (1501-1570) and Yulgok 栗谷 Yi I 李珥 . These scholars-officials, whose portraits are printed on today's South Korean bank notes, are the paragons of an idealized national spirit, which main flavor is undeniably Confucian. These two scholars are also regarded as having given birth to the two main philosophical schools coming from the Korean reappraisal of Chinese Neo-Confucianism. In this workshop, I will present some tentative remarks resulting from my on-going research on Yulgok Yi I. It is hoped that Yulgok will provide an interesting case-study, for he raises a few stimulating questions about the historiography of Neo-Confucianism, past and present. In spite of his apparent embodiment of the orthodox Neo-Confucianism, Yulgok indeed appears as a problematic figure for two reasons that could be summarized in two very simple but rather disturbing questions. Did he become a true Buddhist when he made a one-year retreat in the Mounts Kŭmgang 金 鋼 in the Kangwŏn province in his early twenties? Is his philosophy influenced by Buddhism, that is by heterodoxy?

Previous scholarship

The dominant academic discourse in South Korea argues that Yulgok was an orthodox and thus exemplary Neo-Confucian thinker. This viewpoint has however been slightly questioned since a few decades by a few researchers, like Yi Pyŏngdo, Song Sŏkku or Kim Kilhwan, who suggested that some elements in Yulgok's writings show that he must have been influenced

by Buddhism and even Taoism. Even though his open-mindedness towards the two other teachings has always been a consensual matter, the characteristics of his philosophical thought are still subject to debate -and sometimes hot debates. To sum up, the majority of the research done so far about his thought and life predominantly falls within the province of a solely philosophical analysis, which uses sometimes a pretty loose conglomeration of notions like influences or similarities. Concerning Buddhist borrowings or influences, these works generally fail at convincing because of the lack of clear evidences. Research has mostly been carried out on the possible similarities between a few notions, often randomly chosen, in Yulgok's collected works (一心, 定心, 正心, 立志, 三不, 涵養, 省察, etc.) and various important Buddhist ideas (心卽是佛, 色 是空 空 是色, 三要, etc.) and scriptures (The Heart Sūtra 心經, The Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch 六祖壇經, the Nirvāṇa Sūtra 大 槃 涅 槃 經 , The Avataṃsaka Sūtra 華嚴經, etc…), with a special focus on the hwaŏm 華嚴 school.

I don't mean to criticize those studies as a whole, for they certainly did have paved the way to a more balanced view on Yulgok's orthodoxy as well as the so-called Neo-Confucian orthodoxy of the first half of Chosŏn that has often been taken as a monolithic phenomenon. I am also aware that, because of the scarcity of the available sources for this period compared to the second half of Chosŏn, it would be hard to give a comprehensive and precise description of the texts Yulgok has been actually reading, his reading practices, the detailed circulation of knowledge between China and Korea, and his relationships with the Buddhist world of his time -even though such a work could be experimented. This said, I would just like to argue that the two problems raised by Yulgok's relationships with Buddhism (his biography and his thought) are deeply connected to another large and delicate topic: his reception from his own time until nowadays, a study that has not been done yet systematically.

Historical context

A quick glimpse at the mid and late 16 th century might enable to say that, generally speaking, it was no more times for a good-hearted dialogue between Buddhists and Confucians (taken in the broad sense of the scholars-officials holding important social and political positions).

Besides the opposition to Buddhism has always been part of the identity of Neo-Confucians in both China and Korea, as can be seen for instance in reference textbooks like the Reflections on things at hand (Jinsilu 近思錄), the Neo-Confucian Terms Explained (Beixi ziyi 北溪字 義), but also in Yulgok's Essentials of the Studies of the Sages (Sŏnghak chipyo 聖學輯要). It could even be said that without Buddhism, there would have never been Neo-Confucianism, which built up its identity in opposition to chan Buddhism. To say it in a provocative way, Neo-Confucianism is, in its very essence, a fighting and needs therefore an enemy. The goal of the fighting was, of course, power and hegemony to rule society. It is worth reminding that Neo-Confucianism was basically the ideology and culture of a specific social group: the social, political and administrative elites. At the end of the 16 th century, these elites felt somewhat vulnerable and were in search for self-definition and security, after the traumatic series of literati purges (sahwa 士禍 : 1498, 1504, 1519, 1545, 1547) of evil memory, in a context marked by constant and recurring struggles with royal authority and kingship at large. So it might be said that the ideological and normative framework of Neo-Confucianism, taken as a state ideology, was mostly set up in Yulgok's time. The ideological norms meant 1) normative measures trying to regulate ritual and religious practices on the institutional level (the code of the dynasty has been fixed in late 15 th century), 2) normative discourses centered on Confucian values and ideas that were expected from and spread by officials and country side elites (the Five bonds 五倫), and 3) normative practices intended to change mores and culture, a process undertaken by scholars like Yulgok and T'oegye in local arenas in structures like Confucian academies (sŏwŏn 書院) or community compacts (hyangyak 鄉約).

Approach, limits, methodology and sources of the work in progress

When considering the relationship between Confucianism and Buddhism in such a context, the interest naturally goes first to the possible and often unquestionable discrepancies in real life, the gap between discourses and actual practices. Cataloging these contradictions is then a tempting approach. But when it comes to case studies focusing on individual scholars, such a cataloging is sometimes difficult and even impossible to do satisfactorily, especially for the early Chosŏn period. Besides, by doing so, one might wonder whether this is not simply leading to a soft relativism that doesn't say much in the end. One of the reason concerns the sources. Depending on the period and the scholar, the available sources are not numerous, for they have been either lost, or selected in a conscious (or unconscious) strategy by disciples or descendants, or both, in the often hectic process of transmission and compilation of the remaining works of one scholar. A second reason is that those sources are mainly texts and thus discourses. This implies to define a careful methodology, for the approach should ideally stand at the crossroad between philology, history, philosophy and literary criticism. To say it simply, one has to face a handful of texts that are in a gray zone between collective norms (social, ideological and literary norms) and individual expression.

Aware of these limits and in order to overcome them, I have attempted to focus on one case study and to study in details a broad range of texts that seem to be relevant to the analysis of Yulgok's attitude and discourse about Buddhism. I have tried to keep in mind the nature, the expected audience, the goal and the sense of each type of text, namely: exam essays, petitions to the throne, officially ordered philosophical treatises and poetry. As for his biography, I have studied some extracts taken from 1) his official correspondence, 2) the official history (Chosŏn wangjo sillok 朝鮮王朝實錄), 3) the biographical account (haengjang 行狀) written after his death by his most prominent disciple Kim Changsaeng 金長生 (1548-1631) and the official biography ("biography year by year" yŏnbo 年譜) written by the famous scholar and statesman Song Siyŏl 宋時烈 (1607-1689) that have been both compiled in the reference edition of his collected works, the Yulgok chŏnsŏ 栗谷全書, 4) two short accounts of his retreat at the Mounts Kŭmgang by Pak Sech'ae 朴世采 (1631-1695; "南溪集", 記栗谷先生 入山時事) and Song Siyŏl (宋子大全 19, 進文元公遺橋槁仍辨師友之誣).

Yulgok's retreat in the Mounts Kŭmgang

The first problem with Yulgok's case in the history of the orthodox Neo-Confucianism is the episode of his retreat in the Mounts Kŭmgang for one year, in 1554, when he was nineteen years old. The five available sources all agree on two points: 1) His beloved mother's sudden death when he was sixteen left him numb with grief and, after the ritual mourning period of three years, he went to the mountains and had a "Buddhist" or wandering experience; 2) He only stayed one year in the mountains, went back home, got married and passed civil service examinations with flying colors. But sources also disagree on a few details that could be turned on two main questions: 1) When did Yulgok start reading Buddhist scriptures? How did he get interested in Buddhist texts and how long has he been studying Buddhism? 2) Why did he decide to go to the Mounts Kŭmgang? What were his motives? Most of the versions (three out of five) agree that he started reading Buddhist scriptures randomly, when he was in search for answers about life and death and about how to deal with his deep sorrow after his mother's death. One source specifies that he randomly came across Buddhist texts when he went to the Pongŭnsa temple (cf. Haengjang by Kim Changsaeng), and another one explains that he has been "seduced" by the consolatory words of a Buddhist monk (cf. Annals of the Chosŏn dynasty, 1566, Myŏngjong 21, 3 rd month, 24 th day). The latter one, taken from the official history, adds that his father was fond of sūtras, which seems to be echoed by Song Siyŏl's claim that Yulgok actually started studying Buddhism at age ten, a few years before the trauma of his mother's death (cf. 進文元公遺橋槁仍辨師友之誣).

As I said, the sources all seem to agree that he has had a Buddhist experience in the mountains, exchanging ideas with Buddhist monks (especially through poems) and practicing Buddhists methods of meditation or questioning (like hwadu 話頭) in order to "find the Way". He is even said to have had an ascetic experience, made of intense meditation and deprivation of food according to Kim Changsaeng, just before getting all of a sudden "enlightened" (tae o 大 悟), in a sort of Confucian enlightenment. He then realized that he has been deeply mistaken and was on the wrong track. However one source, the account by Pak Sech'ae, doesn't mention at all his learning Buddhist texts or his interest for Buddhism. Pak indeed explains that, after his mother's death, Yulgok have had a very bad relationship with his father's concubine. So after the end of the three-year mourning and the capping ceremony, he finally decided to leave home. On the pretext to pay a visit to his maternal grand-mother in the Kangwŏn province, he just escape human world and wander into the wild. The disagreement in his family is also mentioned in the Annals of Chosŏn dynasty.

To sum up, the main bone of contention concerns Yulgok's motives for studying Buddhism and his retreat in the mountains. The question is to determine what drove a great scholar and statesman of great stature into taking such an extreme action as cutting himself from society and experiment what was regarded as a nonsensical or shameful experience for a Neo-Confucian. It is not hard to believe that the dominant version, written down and transmitted by his close disciples, is that Yulgok went been through very hard time in his teenage years and had briefly lost his way and his mind. But this orthodox version of the facts actually squares with the explanation that Yulgok himself has provided many times during his lifetime.

What is at stakes?

I would like to wonder now about what was really at stakes in this problem of Yulgok's retreat in the mountains and his interest in Buddhism. Why did he have to constantly explain himself? Why his disciples tried to express their opinion on this matter and further explain it after his death? And why scholars are still wondering about his motives nowadays?

Let me briefly remind a few interesting episodes of Yulgok's life. When he first met in 1558 T'oegye Yi Hwang, who was then at the height of his fame, the twenty-three years old Yulgok was teased for his past infatuation with Buddhism as well as frivolous literary composition. With a rather paternalistic tone, To'egye acknowledged that even great Song Neo-Confucian masters have been seduced at some point by Buddhism but he urged Yulgok to keep making efforts, since he seemed to be a promising young man. Six years later, in 1564, Yulgok started his official career in the bureaucracy after making a name as an exceptional scholar who placed first nine times in civil service examinations. In the course of these successive palace examinations, a few students from the Royal Academy tried once to stop him entering the examination place, on the pretext that he has been a Buddhist monk and was thus unworthy of passing examinations. Hopefully, Yulgok could finally enter and placed first.

He even had three hits in a row after this incident. In 1568, four years later, some of his colleagues petitioned against his appointment at the Hongmungwan, arguing that, because of his Buddhist background, he shouldn't be a Special Counselor.

All these stories shows that wondering whether Yulgok has been a Buddhist or not is basically a Confucian debate, which involves no Buddhist counterpart, no testimony from the "other side". One might even go a step further: this problem seems to go beyond the orthodoxy versus heterodoxy debate. Regularly bringing back Yulgok's Buddhist wandering was part of petty jealousies, obstructive moves and, to sum up, power struggles. These struggles concerned the relationships between exam passers or high officials, but also the relationships between a senior scholar and a junior scholar in the small network of talented and influential Confucians. Even today's debates on Yulgok's retreat in the mountains and his undeniable interest in Buddhism don't really escape the pitfalls of power struggles: academic power struggles, if I may say so. So I am wondering whether taxing someone with Buddhism was not, at Yulgok's time, like what Lucien Febvre said about Rabelais who was accused of being atheistic in 16 th century France (The Problem of Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century: The Religion of Rabelais). I can't help wondering whether Yulgok's Buddhist experience was not, simply, a pretext and a means to insult and discredit him, without any real concern about the possible impact or meaning of the interreligious contact itself. Of course, for his disciples from the 17 th century onwards, the constellation of things was certainly different. They had to preserve his legacy and, by doing so, find their own niche in the midst of intense and factional strives at court that were both political and philosophical.

Yulgok's discourse on Buddhism, as a statesman and as a Confucian master

After what Yulgok describes as a youthful mistake from his immature years, his discourse on Buddhism and heterodoxies of all kind has been rather "orthodox". Even though it is impossible to determine what he was really thinking, he did have played the role of the exemplary high official and Neo-Confucian master.

One interesting body of texts is his exam dissertations, partly compiled in his collected writings (死生鬼神策, 神仙策, 祈禱策, 壽夭策, 醫藥策, 天道人事策, 化策, etc.). The interest is twofold. Firstly, one can see that at the end of the 16 th century, many exam topics dealt with topics that call for a certain knowledge of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and religious life in general: life and death, reincarnation, longevity, immortality, cases of extreme filial piety, ancestor worship, spiritual beings, the efficiency and meaning of prayers, the vital process, the march of Heaven, etc. Of course, in the very way questions are formulated, one can easily understand that the expected answers must be Confucian. So the candidates and future high officials are expected to develop the correct rhetoric, in a well-argued speech and not indulging in easy criticisms. Secondly, Yulgok's answers are demonstrating both his erudition and originality, and one strong characteristic is that he not only answers in details, but he also adds ideas that were not really expected. These are personal comments, deeply rooted in a very specific Neo-Confucian rhetoric: that of the "learning of the Sovereign". This trend is the result of the Yuan reception and reappraisal of Song Neo-Confucianism in China. So it differs slightly from the so-called Song "orthodox" Neo-Confucianism of the Cheng brothers or Zhu Xi. This Neo-Confucianism is didactical and mainly preoccupied with kingship, the balance of power between kings and the elites and the implementation of an ideal State. As a candidate and, later, as a high official, Yulgok has always followed this line.

For example, 1) he refused to preside over improper cults and even asked for being dismissed from his post, 2) he stood vehemently against the king's clemency during the trial of the Buddhist monk Po'u 普雨 (1509-1565) and presented several collective petitions to the throne, 3) he beg to prohibit Buddhist examinations, 4) he warn the king against extravagant expenses that might be related to Buddhist practices, etc. So in his public life as a high official, Yulgok is showing a great concern for the regulation of cults, the standardization of religious practices (mainly funerary services and state ceremonies) and he is in favor of sumptuary laws. He is acting as a faithful minister, the wise counselor whose very raison d'être is to advise and even teach the king. Besides, a careful look at his writings shows that he is not a Confucian fundamentalist. He is of course neither accommodating nor lenient towards Buddhism and other cults and religious practices, but he has his feet on the ground. He acknowledges that changing society and implementing an ideal State will take some time and can't be done overnight. So his viewpoint is often pragmatic regarding state affairs, with a touch of Neo-Confucian idealism though.

In such a mental framework, beyond the well-known socio-economical criticisms, Buddhism is problematic for it fundamentally diverts people from the core problem of life -which, in a Confucian worldview, means understanding how a society should work to fit the natural, cosmic order. This order in based on the cosmology of the Book of Changes (Yijing 易經) considering the world as constant changes and, to borrow a cheap metaphor, as a sort of huge magnetic field. So this cosmology differs greatly from the Buddhist worldview based on causality and completely different metaphysics. Yulgok is often defined as having developed a complex philosophy on the relationship between Material force (Qi/Ki 氣) and Principle (Li/I 理), and his emphasis on the cultivation of Qi is certainly linked to this concern with cosmology, taken as the basis and axis of ethics and politics. This is also why his though differs from Buddhism and finally remains within the field of orthodox Neo-Confucianism where the philosophy of the Book of Change is so important in many ways.

As a Confucian master, Yulgok is indeed in the right line of the Neo-Confucian discourse.

Although he might be the author of one of the first Korean Confucian commentary of the Daodejing, and although he has certainly been studying Buddhist scriptures when he was a young man, he strictly forbade reading heterodox texts in his two emblematic works: the Essentials of the Studies of the Sages, Sŏnghak chipyo 聖學輯要 (1575) dedicated to the king, and the Core Principles to Expel Ignorance, Kyŏngmong yogyŏl 擊蒙要訣 (1577) written for his students -two works that certainly encapsulate the thought of his maturity. Lastly, I would like to add that he never discussed anything related to Buddhism in his personal correspondence. But he usually discussed openly about anything he was wondering about with his close friends. One can indeed find many exchanges about historical problems, rituals, ethics and metaphysics but no word about Buddhism or Buddhist world. In a sense, this world might have been part of his daily life, so it was not worth talking about and even not worth thinking about, expect when administrative duties were at stakes.

A specific genre: poetry

Buddhism is certainly part of Yulgok's daily life and mental landscape. Buddhist people, world and buildings are familiar elements in his life and imagination. When investigating into Yulgok's relationship with Buddhism, one can't avoid tackling a very specific and delicate corpus, a genre that is semi-private, semi-public like many other writings in pre-modern Korea: poetry. His poems are full of mentions of encounters with Buddhist monks, exchanges of ideas or poems with them, and overnight stays in temples when Yulgok went hiking into the mountains. In previous scholarship, most of the scholars interested in his relationship with Buddhism have tended to read these poems only as testimonies of simple interreligious contacts. Focused on a philosophical approach, they have been interested mostly in his use of Buddhist words or Buddhist-like phraseology and themes, in order to try to demonstrate that Yulgok had a good knowledge of Buddhism. But unfortunately these studies often lack consistency, for they either quote again and again the same poems without paying any attention to Yulgok's poetry as a whole, or they only have a "utilitarian" reading of the poems, not really sensitive to their literary expression.

Poetry is a delicate genre. Like most literati's writings, they are almost always circumstantial writings. They clearly involve literary skills and an esthetical viewpoint, but they also point at sociability, good manners and a certain sense of civility. Poetry is part of a refined culture shared by literate people, Confucian scholars and Buddhist monks alike. So it is not surprising that Yulgok has given poems as gifts to Buddhist monks when he was taking his leave, or that he wrote poems to commemorate his stops during his excursions and free wanderings in the mountains and countryside. Poems often play the role of short diaries and they convey individual impressions, feelings and thoughts. Of course, the writing of poetry does obey literary rules and writing norms, but it also constitutes an interesting "literary space" allowing free expression of the self, even though this self is heavily self-staged. It is a common place to say that norms create freedom, but this is worth reminding, for poetry as well as correspondence are the two types of texts where one scholar's inner world may be grasped and sensed. I haven't yet finished studying in details the huge amount of poems left by Yulgok. But I did have read quite a lot of them. What strikes me, in relation to Buddhism, is that Buddhism is associated with a few specific literary motives: 1) nature, especially mountains, 2) eremitism, 3) immortality and/or unreality, evasion 4) peace of mind and rest.

In most cases, the poems staging an encounter with a Buddhist monk conjure up the feelings of familiarity, sympathy, sometimes irony but always kindness. It is often a meeting between two people. Even though the names of the monks are seldom specified, one can clearly feel that it is a pleasant encounter. One aspect that Korean scholars didn't highlight, to my point of view, is this little touch of humor and kind irony, which demonstrates benevolence and even affection. Besides these real meetings, Buddhist monks are also often depicted in Yulgok's poems as unreal apparitions, unexpected encounters between dream and reality. They seem to be fantastical being, recalling the Taoist figures of immortals. They are indeed described as cranes, ageless beings who are freely wandering in the mountains, living in harmony with clouds, waterfalls and venerable trees. Another poetical motive in those poems where Buddhist monks or monasteries appear is the musicality of nature. This element is closely linked with what look like enchanted parentheses, made of peaceful discussion with friends and monks, or conversely made of solitude in quiet sitting and meditation. The picture of those enchanted moments is the middle of sleepless nights, when the sounds of the universe are all the more audible. This can be the sound of the Buddhist little bell ringing in the wind, the rain drumming on the roof, or the wind gently shaking the branches of the trees.

But the main, striking element is the theme of eremitism, a free wandering and the feeling of being at one with nature, which is part of self-cultivation. One of the main characteristic of Yulgok's biography is the tension between serving or retiring, a very well-known dilemma in Confucianism. This tension, often lived or depicted as an alternative is, in fact, an alternation.

It is an alternation between two exigencies for a true Confucian, that is to say between the two poles of the Great Learning's paradigm (Taehak 大學): self-cultivation and the ordering of society (sugi 修己 ch'iin 治人). Besides, this tension is basically a dynamics. To sum up, Buddhism, as part of Yulgok's poetic motives, may be considered as feeding this vital dynamics that pervades Yulgok's life and thought. It played the role of the impossible and illusionary evasion, a wishful thinking that brings rest to a sometimes tormented mind.

CONCLUSION

To conclude, I would like to suggest that the survey of a various range of texts mentioning Buddhism in Yulgok's writings and second-hand biographies allows us to make a few tentative statements. Yulgok has been attracted by Buddhism when he was a young man, but it seems that this interest was deeply associated with moments of existential and intellectual disarray. He then made up his mind to follow the Confucian Way and never hesitated again.

There must have been different reasons explaining such a decision but we will never know them for sure. Once he made his decision, by writing a solemn declaration of intent when he came back from the Mounts Kŭmgang (the famous chagyŏg mun 自警文), he has been constantly trying to practice Confucian ideals in both his private and public life. As a high official and as a Confucian scholar, he has been exemplary and quite representative of the Neo-Confucian gentleman, kunja 君子. As a poet, it happened that he used Buddhism as a tempting evasion, a way out from the concerns of his life and political disillusions (I didn't have time to mention this point, but his biography of Kim Sisŭp 金時習 (1582) as well as a quotation from the official history back up this analysis). But this evasion was also provided by his numerous and recurring evocations of Taoist-flavored and, above all, very Confucian eremitism expressed through common literary themes of retreat like chrysanthemum, snow, alcohol, friendship, poetry, etc. I would like to end up this talk with a question. I am wondering whether the very fact that his biographies are contradictory is not, after all, deliberate. The topic of Yulgok's "Buddhist episode" remains and will always remain blurred, even though it is undeniable and it has actually never been denied. Zhang Zai 張載 (1020-1078), Cheng Hao 程顥 (1032-1085) and Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200), the "founding fathers" of the orthodox Neo-Confucianism have all experienced passing infatuations with Buddhism. These accounts not only have never been denied by orthodox tradition, but there were on the contrary carefully integrated in Neo-Confucian textbooks, in the chapter devoted to Confucian Sages. So, just like them, Yulgok might have been deliberately portrayed by his posterity as having gone through this kind of ultimate rite of passage, which is the hallmark of exceptional Neo-Confucian masters.


Isabelle Sancho

"Korean Studies Achievements and Prospects in the East and the West" Achievements and Prospects of Korean Studies in France 프랑스의 한국학 교류와 성과

Korean studies in France have a long history that reflects the specificities of the French interest for East Asia from the 18 th century. The relationships between the two countries were marked at the 19 th century by tumultuous episodes due to French catholic proselytism and expansionist policy in East Asia but also by remarkable and unexpected scholarly achievements. At the 20 th century, the isolated initiatives to promote and study Korea in France randomly taken by missionaries, diplomats, collectors and orientalists have been progressively replaced by institutionalized Korean studies that started to be structured within French universities and other higher education institutions with the help of specialists of other areas (China and Japan). After World War II, Korean studies have been continuously growing in France thanks to a whole generation of specialists holding positions in key institutions. These French Koreanists have actively participated in the building of European Korean studies and trained their successors, most of whom have landed positions in Paris and several large cities and are teaching and researching about Korea today. Following the long democratization of Korea and then the newly acquired visibility and attractiveness of Korean culture on the international stage from the late 1980's to the early 2010's, undergraduate students population in Korean studies has increased exponentially in France. Under this stunning

demographic pressure, many Korea specialists have been successively recruited as permanent staff in major Korean studies institutions in Paris and other large French cities, giving the impression that Korean studies have now become a mature and self-sufficient field. However the repeated largescale reforms of French higher education and research sector that happened to be carried out at the very same time have significantly complicated the task of French Koreanists who might lose the examplary cohesion that provided their strength so far. Facing many challenges, among which the lack of means and human resources as well as the massification of undergraduate students population, today's French scholars on Korea try to "form community" through a network of francophone Korean studies (Réseau des études sur la Corée RESCOR). Their goal is to train the next generation while trying to keep the diversity of Korean studies in a more and more standarized and uniform academic world.

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I. The origins of French Korean studies

Korean studies in France have been developed in French universities and other institutions of higher education over the last six decades, from the mid-1950's right after the Korean war. But Korea was probably known in France, within small circles, as early as the late 17 th century and the origins of the Korean studies have to be traced back to the 19 th century.

Minutoli's translation of Hamel's travelogue

The first time Korea was mentionned to a French learned audience is most probably in 1670, when the captivity narrative by Hendrik Hamel (1630-1692) published in 1668 in Amsterdam 2 was translated from Flemish into French by Vincent Minutoli (1639-1709) and published in Paris in 1670. 3 Despite a few inconsistencies and errors that altered Hamel's original manuscript, this edition became a reference in Europe and the first English translation of Hamel's travelogue was done from it and published by John Churchill in 1705. 4 It is also worth noting that this French edition was again chosen preferably among many other editions by Yi Pyŏngdo for his own translation into Korean published in 1954. [START_REF] Pyŏngdo | yoryugi 하멜漂流記, Ilchogak[END_REF] 2. The M.E.P and French missionaries But it was not until the 19 th century that France and Korea came into their first direct contact, when the Catholic missionnaries from the Paris Foreign Missions Society (Missions étrangères de Paris M.E.P) started to spread southwards from China into the Korean peninsula. Since then, the rocky cultural exchanges between France and Korea have been largely conditionned by the difficult diplomatic negiotiations surrounding the presence and proselyting of these French missionaries in the Korean kingdom. Missionaries' activities had caused substantial troubles to Chosŏn Korea. A well-known example is the French campaign against Korea in 1866 in Kanghwa island and the seize of precious books among which the Royal Protocols (Uigye 儀軌) from the Outer Kyujanggak Library. But despite these troubles that have often impaired the relationships between France and Korea until the very beginning of the 21 rst century, one should acknowledge that the first important scholarly work in Western language about Korea was achieved by a French priest.

Charles Dallet (Claude-Charles Dallet, 1829-1878), from the Paris Foreign Missions Society, published in 1874 the first Western work on Korea after Hamel's Account. His History of the Church of Korea in two volumes and 1174 pages provides detailed information about Korea in the late 19th century and can be considered as a precious historical document.

In particular, the 192-page introduction of the work has attracted the attention of generations of specialists of Korea, for it describes in an anthropological way the geography, history, society, political organization, religions, foreign affairs, oral and written languages of the late Chosŏn Korea. The introduction was translated in Korean in 1947 and 1966, and the whole work in 1980 by the Institute of the History of Korean Church. [START_REF] 샤를르 달레 原著 | 샤를르 달레 原著, 安應烈 • 崔奭祐 譯註, 韓國天主敎會史, 上 • 中 • 下[END_REF] One interesting remark is that Dallet was not a specialist of Koreaand not even of North-East Asia. He spent most of his missionary life in India and had never been to Korea himself. After the killing of the "martyrs of Korea" in 1866, Dallet decided to compile the information and materials gathered by several priests who served in the peninsula, among whom bishop Antoine Daveluy (Marie-Nicolas-Antoine Daveluy, An Toni 安敦伊, 1818-1866), apostolic vicar of Korea whose writings were kept at the archives of the Paris Foreign Missions Society after his death. By publishing this work, Dallet's main purpose was not to increase public interest in France for Korea. It was rather to justify the missionary task of French priests in Asia, especially in Korea which was seen as a new Christian land.

However catholic missionnaries in Korea achieved substantial works that would paved the way to the birth of Korean studies in France one century later : dictionnaries, grammar book or translations. For example, bishop Antoine Daveluy compiled the first Korean-French dictionnary (Hanhanbul sajŏn 韓漢佛辭典), wrote a Chronological chart of Korean history (Chosŏn yŏndaep'yo 朝鮮史年代表) and translated several texts related to Korean history into French to be sent to the Paris Foreign Missions Society.

Diplomats, orientalists, and collectors

Besides the missionaries, the diplomatic community and especially the interpreters played a key role in developing French knowledge about Korea. The "Friendship and Trade agreement" signed in 1886 not only marked the establishment of diplomatic relations between France and Korea but it provided also a chance to give birth to French Korean studies. Many members of the French diplomatic corps have been trained, in the past but also today, at the [START_REF] Rosny | They were French authors of Belgian origine who wrote, together or separately, science fiction[END_REF] and Hong Chongu was published in a small book format (7.5 x 13.5 cm) at the Dendu collection in Paris. [START_REF]Le printemps parfumé, roman coréen[END_REF] This edition is regarded as the first French translation of an East-Asian literary work in France, since not a single translation of a Chinese or Japanese novel had been published at that time. In 1895, after Hong Chongu had left for Korea, a text titled "The dry wood flourished again" (Le Bois sec refleuri) was published by the Guimet Museum. [START_REF]Le Bois sec refleuri, traduit par Hong Tjyong-Ou[END_REF] That was a French translation of a manuscript attributed to -and probably written by-Hong Chongu from heterogeneous body of Korean historical texts and literary tales, among which the Tale of Sim Ch'ŏng (Sim Ch'ŏng chŏn 沈淸傳). 10

The founding father of French Korean Studies : Maurice Courant

It is widely agreed that the founding father of Korean studies in France is Maurice Courant (1865-1935) [START_REF]모리스 꾸랑 의 서울 의 추억[END_REF] But the most remarkable achievement of Courant for Korean studies is certainly the manuscript, in two volumes and 349 pages with an index, called Répertoire historique de l'administration coréenne (Han'guk yŏktae haengjŏng-kwanjik ch'ongnam 한국 역대 행정-관직 총람). This work consistently translates the administrative structures and nomenclature of the Chosŏn state into French equivalents and is without precedent in either English or Modern Korean. The manuscript has remained unpublished until 1986, when late professor Daniel Bouchez 14 edited and published a fac-simile of it at the Collège de France, in Cahiers d'études coréennes. [START_REF] Bouchez | fac-simile with a presentation by Bouchez and an index of modernized transcriptions by Min Yông-ûi[END_REF] Considering the importance of the work, which has no equivalent worldwide, the Center for Korean Studies at EHESS made efforts to transform the manuscript into a searchable document, available for the academic community. The first step was taken in 2007 when Alain Delissen,16 then the director of the CKS, charged Pierre-Emmanuel Roux 17 with typing the whole document in a Word document that could be made available on-line and also adding Modern Korean transcriptions and a few commentaries. 18 Then in 2015, as the director of the CKS, Isabelle Sancho also fully supported Eun-joo Carré-Na, 19 the research engineer at the CKS, to ask for funding to the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS) in order to make a digital edition of Courant's revised manuscript with three different indexes. In the wake of Sorbonne university, the Ecole Nationale des Langues Orientales Vivantes (ENLOV) created its own degree in Korean studies in 1959. This degree was obtained after two years but a third year at the Sorbonne was necessary to obtain the Licence degree. Classes at ENLOV and Sorbonne were taught by the same teaching staff. The only permanent lecturers were Li Ogg and his successor Fabre, who became professor in Korean in 1969 when Li was appointed at Paris 7 University (today's Paris Diderot University).

The 1970's-1990's: the beginning of large-scale institutional reforms and the institutionalization of Korean studies in French universities

Following the May 1968 events in France, the institutional landscape of French higher education has been changing rapidly and drastically. As far as Korean studies were concerned, the Section of Japanese and Korean studies was split into two different sections at the Sorbonne in order to form, with the Section of Chinese studies and the Section of Vietnamese studies, a new university component called the unité d'enseignement et de recherche ("teaching and research unit") "Langues et Civilisations de l'Asie Orientale" (Languages and Civilizations of East Asia), UER LCAO. [START_REF]The unités d'enseignement et de recherche[END_REF] This UER was part of Paris 7 University. Li Ogg was then the only permanent lecturer and was assisted by a few temporary instructors. Li was a specialist of Korean history, especially ancient history. He defended his PhD in Korean ancient history in 1977 [START_REF] Ogg | Recherche sur l'antiquité coréenne, ethnie et société de Koguryŏ[END_REF] and became full professor in 1983. During his career, he has published several teaching and research materials about Korean history, mythology, and language. [START_REF] Ogg | Histoire de la Corée, collection Que sais-je ?[END_REF] In the early 1970's, another prominent figure of the first generation of Korean studies specialists appeared. Daniel Bouchez (1928-2014), a former catholic priest in Korea, became instructor in Korean studies both at Paris 7 and the EPHE (IV th Section). In 1972 he was recruited in his fourties as a permanent researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS). Bouchez was a specialist of Korean language and literature. While teaching he prepared and obtained a doctoral degree at Paris 7 in 1975. [START_REF]Les Pérégrinations de Dame Xie dans le Sud: étude sur un roman coréen[END_REF] During his late but prolific career as an international specialist of Korea, he published and presented a number of studies that are still regarded as references. His main focus of study was Kim Manjung 金萬重 (1637-1692) and his novels. [START_REF]To the South (Namjŏng ki 南征記) and Dreams of nine clouds[END_REF] As the co-author and adapter in French of the History of Korean literature by Cho Tongil, [START_REF] Tong-Il | Histoire de la littérature coréenne, des origines à nos jours[END_REF] he contributed to a better understanding of Korean literary tradition in France and Europe. Bouchez was also among the founding members and used to be the President of the Association of Korean Studies in Europe (AKSE) and the French Association for Korean Studies (Association Française pour l'Etude de la Corée, AFPEC). In 1983 was also recruited as an assistant professor at Paris 7 University Martine Prost, a linguist specialized in Japanese and Korean, who contributed for many years to the growth of Korean studies in France and inter-cultural understanding between France and Korea. [START_REF] Prost | L'Asiathèque-Maison des langues du mondes[END_REF]

Maintaining the tradition : the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO)

Korean studies at the Ecole Nationale des Langues Orientales Vivantes, which was renamed Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) in 1971, 28 developped from the late 1960's when Fabre obtained his PhD in linguistics and was appointed professor of Korean studies. 29 Among the teaching staff from the 1970's to the 1990's were two linguists, Lee Byoung-jou 30 As a post-graduate research center providing large library resources, mostly in Korean, 33 the center gathers most of the French specialists of Korea as permanent members, affiliates, or associates. In 1989 after the democratic movements of the 1980's in South Korea, the "Research group on the economy and society of Korea" (groupe de recherches sur l'économie et la société de la Corée, GRESCO) was created at the EHESS thanks to the efforts of Bertrand Chung (Cheong Seongbae, born 1933) and his colleagues at EHESS who supported him. Chung is a political scientist and activist. Primarily trained in Japanese, he graduated from the Seoul National University in Law and obtained a fellowship from the French government to study policial science and law before being involved in the "East Berlin crisis," during which he was kidnapped by South Korean secret services, sent back to Seoul, and imprisoned. After this traumatic episode, he was living in exile in Paris and worked for the Documentation française, publishing academic reports and studies about Japan for French government, and then at the EHESS as a specialist of Japan. He obtained a PhD in Law in France and was finally recruited as an assistant professor in 1990 at the EHESS, in Japanese studies. [START_REF] Bertrand | s publications, one could cite the following ones related to South Korea: Bertrand Chung, "Politique et religion en Corée du Sud" (Politics and religion in South Korea)[END_REF] Simultaneously in 1991, the "Research group on Korea" ("Groupe de recherche sur la Corée" URA 1474) was created at the CNRS and hosted by Paris-7 University. It was coordinated by Bouchez and Alexandre Guillemoz (born 1941), an anthropologist who was a research director at the CNRS. The research group was then transferred to the EHESS in 1995 and merged with the GRESCO to form the research Center on Korea (Centre de recherches sur la Corée, CRC). The CRC was founded at the EHESS with the help of the Korea Foundation established in 1991 and thanks to the favorable political environment in South Korea leading to the election of Kim Dae-jung. Its first director was Chung. He was followed by Guillemoz who became in 1999 a professor at EHESS. Guillemoz has supervised many PhD dissertations [START_REF] Guillemoz Defended | Les Algues, les anciens, les dieux : la vie et la religion d'un village de pêcheursagriculteurs coréens" (Seaweed, the elderly, and gods : the life and religion of a village of Korean fishermenfarmers) at Le Léopard d'or in Paris in 1983. Guillemoz edited a collective volume[END_REF] and improved significantly the international visibility of the CRC and its members in the 1990's and after. In 1995 Delissen, a specialist of colonial, urban, and cultural history, was recruited at the CRC. [START_REF] Delissen | is a former student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure Ulm (고등사범학교), a French Grande école and is specialist of History (Agrégation d'histoire)[END_REF] Taking over much of the scientific policy of the center, he worked closely with Guillemoz to help Korean studies gain academic recognition in France and abroad and grow into a more mature and diversified field. They also both taught seminars that trained several Korea specialists in France.

A prestigious institution of Korean studies in France, the Institut d'études coréennes (IEC) of the Collège France

Another presigious institution related to Korean studies in Paris is the Institut d'études coréennes (IEC) of the Collège de France, which was created as early as 1530. 37 The IEC was founded in 1959 at Sorbonne University by Haguenauer, based on the personal library resources provided by the latter, and was transferred in 1973 to the Collège de France. It is part of the Instituts d'Extrême-Orient (Institutes of the Far East) of the Collège de France that is composed of the Institutes of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, and Tibetan studies. [START_REF]These Institutes of the Far East is itself part of the Institut des Civilisations (Insitute of Civilizations) of the Collège de France that gathers the Institutes of Egyptology, Ancien Middle East, Byzantine studies, Arabic, turkish and islamic studies, and the Laboratory of social anthropology[END_REF] It contains a rich library providing today about 30,000 books and periodicals (70% in Korean) about literature, history, philosophy, law, and arts. 39 The IEC also maintains precious books coming from the Maurice Courant collection, 40 41 The directors of the IEC have been, in chronological order : Li Ogg (Paris 7), Marc Orange (CNRS), [START_REF] Orange | among the two first graduates students in Korean at Sorbonne university[END_REF] Martine Prost (Paris 7), Alain Delissen (EHESS). Delissen, the current director since 2011 works with the IEC librarian No Mi-sug [START_REF]Mi-sug studied French[END_REF] who is also a translator of Korean literature. He has launched in 2016 a new series published at De Boccard, Kalp'i-Études coréennes. [START_REF]with words and a reference to three possible meanings of the word in Korean, as can be seen in the following compound word and expressions : 갈피갈피, 책갈피, 갈피를 잡을 수 없다[END_REF] Two books have been already published and two more are foreseen for 2018. [START_REF] Yim | Être Coréens au Kazakhstan. Des entrepreneurs d'identité aux frontières du monde coréen (Being Korean in Kazakhstan. Identity entrepreneurs at the frontiers of the Korean world)[END_REF]

The establishment of Korean studies in large French cities in the late 1980's

In the late 1980's Korean studies have also developped outside of Paris and spread in major French cities. In Lyon, the second largest city in France, Li Jine-Mieung, who was at first a specialist of Japan, has been teaching Korean language and culture from 1983 in the University of Lyon 3 under the recommandation of Li Ogg. [START_REF] Li | Li Line-Mieung and Maurice Coyaud, Aubergines magiques. Contes érotiques et légendes de Corée (Magic eggplants. Erotic tales and legends from Korea)[END_REF] In Bordeaux, Korean started to be taught in 1986 by Kim Bona, an artist and poet and a specialist of Korean literature, [START_REF]After studying Korean literature at Seongshim university as well as French language and literature, Kim Bona (Kim Hanjeong) arrived in France in[END_REF] at the University of Bordeaux 3. She became assistant professor in 1993 and later the director of the Korean Section. In 1987 Korean language and culture started also to be taught at the University of Le Havre. Eun-Sook Choi-Chabal, [START_REF] Choi | obtained her PhD in French literature in 1984 at the University of Grenoble 3[END_REF] a specialist of Korean literature, was appointed assistant professor in 1992.

III. Current landscape

The University of Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)

As for now the Comue Université de recherche Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL Research University) gathers, for Korean studies, the colleagues from the EHESS, Collège de France, and Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO).

The CRC at the EHESS is one Center of the EHESS but belongs to a larger "joint research unit" (unité mixte de recherche, UMR) called UMR 8173 "Chine, Corée, Japon."

The two supervisory institutions of this joint unit are the EHESS and CNRS. The University of Paris Diderot (Paris 7) is a partner institution and will become a supervisory institution as well starting from January 2018. As its name implies, this "joint unit" gathers since 2006 the Centers for Chinese, Korean, and Japanese studies of the EHESS. [START_REF]The joint unit[END_REF] National research in higher education institutions has been done and funded since 2007 under the terms of research contract agreements established with the State [START_REF]Law of Liberties and Responsibilities of Universities of the 10th of August 2007, also called "law on the autonomies of universities[END_REF] and is now evaluated on a five-year basis instead of a four-year basis. In one decade, the CRC has been led to collaborate more and more with the two other centers of the joint unit.

In 2007 Valérie Gelézeau, a geographer who was already an assistant professor in geography at the University of Marne-la-Vallée, became an assistant professor at the EHESS and joined Delissen and the CRC in 2007. The very same year, Na Eun-joo became a permanent staff of the EHESS as a research engineer and became in charge of the library and the documentation resources of the CRC. 53 In 2009 Isabelle Sancho, a specialist of Confucianism and Korean intellectual history, was hired as a permanent researcher of the History section of the National Center for Scientific research (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS). There had been no researcher on Korea at the CNRS since Orange's retirement in 2002. Sancho was appointed by the CNRS at the CRC. 54 Gelézeau works on cultural geography and her most recent focus of interest has been capital cities in Korean world and urban issues in North Korea. She has directed and coordinated several collaborative research projects. [START_REF]North/South Interfaces in the Korean Peninsula" was carried out from 2006 and 2013 and[END_REF] The latest one is about "Cities, urbanism and architecture in North Korea" (CITY-NKOR) and is led in conjunction between EHESS, the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine (CAPA, Museum of Heritage and Architecture) in Paris, Leiden University, the Seoul Center of the EFEO, and Pyongyang University of Architecture (PUA P'yŏngyang kŏnch'uk chonghap taehak). [START_REF] Gelézeau | is a former student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, a French Grande école, and a specialist of geography (Agrégation de géographie)[END_REF] Delissen's interests are very diverse and eclectic and he has been taking since twenty year a leading role in many collaborative projects with Korean studies specialists but also historians of other areas. He has supervised several PhD students and has trained many of the newly recruited assistant professors in Korean studies in Paris. He has been working on colonial society and history, the city of Seoul through history and space (especially for the year 1925), urban landscape, historiography, translations, storytelling and indexation, urban culture, massacres and war memories, patrimonialization in Kaesong, Ch'oe Namsŏn, Yi Chungsŏp, Maurice Courant, etc. He has published many articles since 1992. 57 Isabelle Sancho is a specialist of Confucianism and intellectual history. [START_REF] Sancho | and Korean at the University of Bordeaux 3 and then at INALCO. She obtained her PhD at INALCO in 2006[END_REF] Very active in international networks and conferences, she notably organized in 2016 at the CRC the first international Conference of pre-modern Korean studies in Europe. [START_REF]Pre-Modern Korean Studies in Europe : Results, Projects, and Prospects[END_REF] These past few years, she has been focusing on translations while directing the CKS and co-directing the joint-unit "China, Korea, Japan" at EHESS. She published in 2011 an annotated bilingual translation (hanmun-French) of Yulgok's Kyŏngmong yogyŏl [START_REF]Principes essentiels pour éduquer les jeunes gens de Yulgok, Yi I[END_REF] Sungkyunkwan university, [START_REF] Coppola | a film director and foreign professor[END_REF] Leiden university, [START_REF] De | associate professor in Korean studies at Leiden University, collaborate regularly with members of the CRC[END_REF] Bruneton, a historian of Koryŏ, was recruited. He has been very active in national and international levels and has published several articles and book chapters. Primarily interested in Koryŏ history, Buddhism, epigraphy, and translations, he also teaches hanja, hanmun, hansi as well as Korean history, historiography, and epigraphy. He became full professor in 2016. [START_REF] Bruneton | studied Korean at Paris 7 and Korean studies at Yŏngnam University and then at the AKS[END_REF] Five new colleagues have been hired within less than a decade at Paris Diderot University. In 2010 Marie-Orange Rivé-Lasan, a historian of modern Korea, was recruited. She works on political networks, South Korean elites, especially those originating from the Northern part of the peninsula, as well as the South Korea democratization and political actors. [START_REF] Rivé-Lasan | L'élite dirigeante de l'Etat sud-coréen au pouvoir de 1961 à 1992 : la constitution des réseaux vus à travers les notices biographiques[END_REF] In 2012 Kim Jin-ok, a linguist, was recruited. She specializes in the Korean language pedagogy, grammar, and difficulties in language acquisition. [START_REF] Kim | obtained her PhD at the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle in[END_REF] In 2013 Florence Galmiche, a social-anthrolopologist, was recruited. She has worked on contemporary urban Buddhism, the relationships between lay Buddhists and monks, and is now exploring new anthropological topics, such as death and ghosts, Jeju massacres, body, health and gender in South Korea. [START_REF] Galmiche | A Space of Mountain within a Forest of Buildings ? Urban Buddhist Monasteries in Contemporary Korea[END_REF] In 2015, Pierre-Emmanuel Roux, a historian of Chosŏn and Sinologist, was recruited. He works on the comparative historiography of catholicism in Asia as well as law in East Asia. He was member of diverse international projects on these topics. [START_REF] Bourgon | Legalizing space in China : the shaping of the imperial territory through a layered legal system[END_REF] He is currently the director of the Korean section of the UFR LCAO at Paris Diderot University. [START_REF] Roux | Chosŏn kagyo ŭi chaebalgyŏn : 16-19 segi ch'ŏnjugyo sŏn'gyosa ŭi Chosŏn chinch'ul chŏllyak e taehan kich'o yŏn'gu (The Rediscovery of the Korean Bridge : A Preliminary Study of the Catholic Missionaries' Strategies regarding Korea[END_REF] In 2017 Yim Eunsil, a social-anthropologist, was recruited. She has worked on the Koreans of Kazakhstan and Korean diaspora, and she has been recently studying immigrants in South Korea and the notion of Korean-ness and its boundaries. [START_REF] Eunsil | Les mobilisations d'expertes juristes dans la construction d'une cause féministe : l'abolition du Hojuje en Corée du Sud[END_REF] Lastly one new associate professor will be recruited in 2018 at Paris Diderot. This rapid succession of recruitments reflects the constant growth of student population in Korean studies since the 2000's. This academic year 2017-2018, there are currently 136 students enrolled in Licence 1, 82 in Licence 2, 48 in Licence 3, 14 in Master 1, 13 in Master 2, and 1 PhD candidate. [START_REF] Peladan | [END_REF] The same phenomenon can be observable in INALCO, which is also part of the same Comue Sorbonne-Paris-Cité. The staff at the INALCO is composed by five permanent members. Maurus became full professor in 2009 but has now retired. Kim Daeyeol, a Sinologist and Koreanist, was recruited in 2002 in Korean studies. He became full professor in 2016 and acts now as the head of the Korea Department at the INALCO. He works on religions and the cultural history of pre-modern Korea, with a special focus on Tasan and king Chŏngjo as well as the history of medecine in Korea. [START_REF] Daeyeol | studied chemistry and the history of religions at Seoul National University in the 1980's and 1990's. Then he came to France and studied art history and archeology as well as the history and anthropology of religions at Sorbonne University (Paris 4)[END_REF] Jeong Eun-jin was hired in 2010. She is a specialist of Modern and contemporary literature and is a renowned literature translator and interpreter. She worked for a while with Maurus and continues developping actively translation and literature studies at INALCO. [START_REF] Eun | contemporary history through the example of fictions by Ch'oe Yun). She translated with Jacques Batillot several novels[END_REF] Kim Hui-yeon, who obtained her PhD in sociology at EHESS in 2011 was recruited in 2012. She worked on the transnationalization of protestant churches from Korea and her recent research is about South Korean missionnaries in South-East Asia as well as South Korean protestant churches, migrations, and multiculturalism. [START_REF] Kim | Les pentecôtistes coréens en Asie du Sud-Est : Exporter la 'théologie de la prospérité' pour assurer son salut[END_REF] In 2016 Stéphane Thévenet, a sociologist and specialist of media and communication, was recruited. [START_REF] Thévenet | Piratage en Corée du Sud : le virage répressif d'une nouvelle puissance culturelle[END_REF] Finally in 2017, Choi Jiyoung, a linguist, was also recruited. [START_REF] Jiyoung | obtained her PhD in linguistics at the Comue Université Nantes-Angers-Le Mans in 2015[END_REF]

Other institutions and structures where Korean studies are taught

Following the same dynamics as in Paris and the growing attractiveness of Korean culture on French youth, the Korean Studies in large French cities have also developed significantly in the 2000's-2010's, mainly at the under-graduate level. Lyon, La Rochelle, Le Havre, Bordeaux, Aix-en-Provence (University Aix-Marseille), which are parts of different Comues today, recruited several Korea specialits as permanent staff. In 2002 was recruited at the University of La Rochelle Evelyne Chérel-Riquier, a modern historian who is a member of the CRC at the EHESS in Paris. She works on the relations between the Catholic Church and politics in South Korea and the construction of national identities. [START_REF] Chérel-Riquier | obtained her PhD in Asian Studies[END_REF] At the same university was recruited in 2007 a linguist, Kwon Yong-hae. He is an active member of the promotion of the Korean language education. [START_REF] Yonghae | University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, "Audiovisuel et télévision (publicité et jeux télévisés) dans un apprentissage du français langue étrangère[END_REF] At the University of Lyon 3, Le-Wang Minsook, a literature specialist, was recruited in 2012 after Li Jine-Mieung's retirement the same year. Li Jine-Mieung, as a professor emeritus, has been authorized to keep supervising the PhD students that were under his direction at Paris Diderot University until 2017. Le-Wang Minsook works on literary criticism, primarily of French literature and more recently Korean literature, with a special focus on Kim Dong-ri. [START_REF] Minsook | literature at the University of Paris 8 in 1999[END_REF] At the University of Bordeaux 3 was recruited Stéphane Couralet, a linguist. He works on syntax and semantics of Korean. [START_REF]Stéphane Couralet obtained his PhD[END_REF] Le Havre had already recruited in 1992 Choi-Chabal Eun-sook, a literature specialist. 85 Kim-Cresenzo Hye-gyeong, a specialist of literature and translator was recruited in the University of Aix-Marseille at Aix-en-Provence in 2011. She works on the reception and translation of contemporary Korean literature. With her husband, she has an active collaboration with the KLTI (Korean Literature Translation Institute), runs a publishing house and operates an online journal specialized in Korean literature. [START_REF] Crescenzo | the Hankuk University of Foreign Language in the late 1980's and obtained a PhD in[END_REF] For most of these places in French large cities, the main issues at stake in Korean studies are the recuitment of permanent staff to meet the students' demand one the one hand and the creation and developement of the Licence in Applied Foreign language Korean-English (Licence Langue Etrangère Appliquée, LEA) on the other hand. The LEA specialization program proposes multidisciplinary and professional courses and is thus more oriented to job search than research and in-depth studies. Under students' demands for courses in LEA and the efforts of the colleagues who were recruited as permanent staff, the universities of La Rochelle and Lyon have suceeded in establishing this curriculum. Students enrolled in Master programs (1 and 2) at La Rochelle are more than a hundred every year and Lyon has successfully started from this fall 2017 a Master program in Applied Foreign language Korean-English. As for the University of Bordeaux 3, students and colleagues are currently trying to implement an LEA program to replace the existing University Degree. This Degree (Diplôme universitaire (DU) "langue et culture coréenne") is issued only by the university and is not a national diploma issued on behalf of the Ministry.

Most of the French universities and higher education institutions where Korean studies are taught (INALCO, Paris Diderot, Lyon, La Rochelle) have international agreements and student exchange programs with Korean universtities : Seoul National University, Sungkyungkwan University, Sogang University, Sookmyung Women's University, Ewha Womans University, Kyung Hee University, Dongguk University, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Busan University of Foreign Studies, Dongeui-University, Inha Univeristy, Pusan National University, Chon Buk National University, and Kim Il-Sung University in Pyongyang 87 . As a post-graduate research center, the CRC at EHESS doesn't have any exchange student agreements but has several partnerships or collaborative projects with Korean institutions, such as Hanyang University, Hongik University, the Seoul Institute, the Pyongyang University of Architecture, etc. Some French institutions are hosting the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) examinations, levels I and II, that are organized by the Education Section of the South Korean Embassy in France in seven cities : Paris (Paris Diderot University), La Rochelle, Rouen (Camille Saint-Saëns high-school), Strasbourg, Aix-en-Provence, Bordeaux, and Lyon. Some of the institutions also have Korean studies student's associations.

RESCOR : a network of French-speaking Korean Studies for a new millenium

As the brief previous overview has shown, French Korean studies in higher education institutions have been growing extremely rapidly over the past two decades in a difficult environment of constant reforms. At the turn of the new millenium, this sudden growth has required to take time for self-reflection and make some decisions for the future. Korean studies scholars in France had to "form community," by organizing themselves beyond the constraints imposed by French institutional reforms, setting up common goals, and preparing together the future developments of the field. After a collective reflection about the history, characteristics, and national and international environments of the French Korean studies, several conclusions have been drawn. The first observation was that French scholars have always payed a special attention to translations. Translations have been considered not only as means of promoting Korean culture and literature in France and as necessary working tools for teaching and researching, but they were also regarded as hermeneutical practices and subjects for study for themselves, raising questions such as "how to translate social sciences" (from French to Korean, from Korean to French, from English translations of Korean into French, etc.) and thus leading to other questionings like "what are Korean studies ?" or "Which Korean studies ?". Whatever their disciplines and the periods of time they were specialized in, all French Koreanists have been extensively translating and thinking in many languages (hanmun, old and modern Korean, colonial period Korean, South Korean, North Korean, diaspora's Korean, academic English, French but also Chinese, Japanese, German, Russian for instances). A second observation was that, with the growing internationalization of academic exchanges and the hegemony of a certain way of doing Korean studies coming from the anglophone sphere, French scholars felt that the globalized Korean studies tended to fall into the pitfalls of uniformisation in its practices, methods, and topics. [START_REF] Delissen | Re-Traversing the world of Korean Studies[END_REF] A third observation, related to the previous ones, was that the French students who wanted to study Korea needed to be provided urgently with various teaching materials in French. They needed to be given an easier access to existing materials or future materials that could to be circulated widely. Even though the growth of under-graduate students population had been progressively met by an increased number of recruitments over the past few years as it has been explained, teaching materials and tools are still sorely lacking (sources books, grammars, hanmun and hanja methods, chronologies, maps, translations of Korean primary sources and social sciences). Considering all this, Korean studies scholars in France have perceived the need to preserve and develop different ways of doing Korean studies world-wide while maintaining a scientific community using French language by sharing information and materials. This led, thanks to the generous support of the AKS, to the creation in 2010 of the "Network of francophone Korean studies," called Réseau des études sur la Corée (RESCOR).

The RESCOR is a multi-year research project that aims to maintain a collaborative network of Korea specialists in France but also abroad. The first consortium, called the supervisor was Bruneton. The RESCOR 1 created and operated a collaborative website hosted at Paris Diderot University (http://www.reseau-etudes-coree.univ-paris-diderot.fr/) and a scientific blog hosted by one platform of OpenEdition, hypotheses.org (http://parisconsortium.hypotheses.org/). It organized five international workshops and conferences to delineate the objectives of the network, develop collaborative tools, identify the possible partners, and deepen the interactions between its members on national and international scales. The main outcomes of the RESCOR 1 were the creation and maintenance of the network's website, the getting online of many existing materials (unpublished translations that can be edited online on a collaborative platform, free copyright articles, archives from the first generation of Korean studies scholars), a better sharing of information about any academic events, publications, and posts related to Korean studies in French, and the mapping of francophone Korean studies worldwide. A survey carried about the countries interested by the RESCOR showed that the francophone community of Korean studies was spread over large areas. One could cite in Europe the UK and Germany of course, but also Bulgaria and Romania for instances. In Africa, contacts were made with Algeria, Côte

Conclusion

After developping at different speeds for more than a half century in French academic institutions, Korean studies in France have now reached a new level where its members are collectively and individually faced with real difficulties but also exciting challenges. Thanks to the efforts made by all of its members, past and present but also inside and outside academia, 90 French Korean studies have been changed from a tiny group of individuals who tried to promote Korea in France according to their personal trajectories and contexts, into a coherent, cohesive, and dynamic field that has gained a certain academic visibility in French area studies.

Beyond national borders, French Koreanists have always been visible and active and are among the pillars of European Korean studies.

Generally speaking, the main assets of French Koreanists are their strong sense of community, a teamwork based on a remarkable cohesion, their collective status of government civil servants enjoying permanent positions, and their fierce will to establish their field in French higher education and research. These characteristics also explain the high pressure that is currently felt by French Koreanists. Firstly they have to face grand institutional reforms in France that are likely to threaten their team cohesion and put their home institutions in competition with one another. Secondly, because of the official ban of any selection of students at under-graduate level and the low tuition fees, there is an increasing massification of students in Korean studies with the growing attractiveness of South Korea in France. This massification imposes in turn a great workload on colleagues teaching at under-graduate levels who are already overwhelmed by their administrative duties.

The reforms in French academia have dramaticaly increased in recent decades the administrative tasks assigned to all teachers-researchers. The proliferation of decision-making structures, the reduction in staff for supporting functions, and the general complexification of the tasks (teaching, research, representation, communication and enhancement, financial and human resources management), and the budget reductions all cause extreme fatigue and stress. This also explains why it takes now more time for junior scholars to become senior scholars by passing their habilitation thesis (habilitation à diriger les recherches HDR) that is a prerequisite for any position of full professors or senior researchers. The lack of habilitation holders among Koreanists (there are only four today in France) explains the lack of professors authorized to supervise PhD dissertations in Korean studies. The main problem concerns thus the training and prospects offered to students who would like to pursue in post-graduate studies. To try to answer these challenges, the RESCOR has been created and there are good prospects. But its future maintenance and developement are already a real matter of concern, when the South Korean funding will end.

As a still young field compared to Chinese, Japanese or Indian studies, Korean studies are still understaffed in France despite the impressive recruitment waves of recent years, and its members are both enjoying and suffering from the recent boom of their field. While enhancing the achievements of the first generation of Koreanists, current French Koreanists have now to train properly the next generation in order to continue building and consolidating their community. 33 The resources are about 10 000 books (80% in Korean) and 270 journals and periodicals (60% in Korean). The CRC was chosen as a Hub-library for Korean Film Studies by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) and holds Korean film funds. The Center makes subscriptions to academic databases in South Korea every year : DBpia, KISS-KSI, KRpia, KOSSDA, RISS international., National Assembly Library (NAL) of Korea, National Library of Korea (NLK), etc. These subscriptions are partly funded by the Korea Foundation.

Bibliography

  Ecole spéciale des Langues Orientales, called INALCO (Institut des Langues et civilisations orientales 이날코 동양어문화대) since the 1970's. This institution of higher education was created during the French Revolution in 1795 in order to train orientalists, interpreters, diplomats, and scholars. Léon de Rosny (1837-1914), a professor of Japanese language at the Ecole des Langues Orientales, published three articles related to Korea between 1859 and 1864. In 1889 Camille Imbault-Huart (1857-1897), a French consul who graduated in Chinese from the same school and became a specialist of Formosa, today's Taiwan, published a Korean language textbook (Manuel de la langue coréenne parlée) in 108 pages after a trip to Korea. Another famous orientalist diplomat is Victor Collin de Plancy (1853-1923), who graduated from the Ecole des Langues Orientales in Chinese in 1876 and spent 13 years in Korea. He first went to Korea in 1887 to ratify the Friendship and Trade agreement. The year after, he became the Chargé d'affaires in Korea and started collecting about 700 ethnographic objects, including art works and fine porcelains, and rare books until 1891. Collin de Plancy also sent three successive shipments of books in 1889, 1890 and 1891 to the Ecole des Langues Orientales, building up the first library funds about Korea in France. He took the initiative to display a Korean pavillon at the Universal Exhibition of Paris in 1900. All the books presented at the exhibition were donated later to the Ecole des Langues Orientales that had then at its disposal one of the most important collections of Korean books in Europe (630 books, 1400 volumes). Around the same time, the ethnologist Louis-Charles Varat (1842-1893) arrived in Korea for an ethnographic fieldwork funded by the French Ministry of Education. He also collected various artifacts and books (written in hangŭl and hanmun) in Seoul, Pusan, and Daegu that were given in 1893 to the Guimet Museum, which displays Asian arts in Paris. Back to France Varat also wrote a 78-page travelogue in 1892 for the journal Le Tour du monde that published writings from famous explorers of the time like David Livingstone (1813-1873). Varat illustrated his text with a map, more than a hundred drawings picturing people and lanscapes of Korea, and 39 drawings by the genre painter Kisan 箕山, Kim Chungŭn 金俊根 (dates unknown). The history of the Guimet Museum is also related to the history of Korean studies in France because of the fascinating figure of Hong Chongu 洪鍾宇 (1850-1913), who assassinated the reformist Kim Okkyun 金玉均 (1851-1894), served in the late Chosŏn administration and was finally relegated because of his strong anti-Japanese stance. In his younger days, Hong Chongu was the first Korean to come to France. He stayed from 1890 to 1893 in Paris, worked at the Museum thanks to the network he could build in the French capital city and became the first co-translator of Korean literature in Western language. In 1892 the French translation of the Ch'unhyang chŏn 春香傳 done by Séraphin Justin François Boex (J.-H. Rosny ; Rosny Junior)

  Finally in 2017, Courant's Répertoire historique de l'administration coréenne has been made available in both French and Korean open archive platforms (HAL and AKS). 20 II. French Korean Studies from the 1950's to the end of the 20 th century 1. The birth of Korean Studies in French universities in the 1950's After Courant who was a professor of Chinese in Lyon, it was a a specialist of Japan, Charles Hagenauer (1896-1976) who taught partially Korean language and culture in France in the first half of the 20 th century. Hagenauer has been teaching Japanese from 1932 to 1953 at the Ecole Nationale des Langues Orientales Vivantes (ENLOV, today's INALCO) and from 1953 to 1967 at the Sorbonne University. In 1944-1945, he started teaching a small class of five students about Korean history and culture but had to interrupt it when, being a Jew, he had to flee to Southern France. Back in Paris after World War II, Hagenauer taught about religions of Japan and Korea between 1933 and 1967 at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes études (EPHE). Thanks to Hagenauer's efforts, Sorbonne University established in 1959 a national degree in Korean studies (Certificat d'études supérieures de coréen) and the Japanese Section was renamed the Section of Japanese and Korean studies. In 1956, this Section was joined by the historian Li Ogg 李玉 (1928-2001) who was invited to teach by Hagenauer and became the first lecturer in Korean studies. The first two graduates from this degree in Korean studies were André Fabre (1932-2009) in 1962 and Marc Orange in 1964. Both have later become important personalities in Korean studies in France.

  figures among the first generation of Korean studies. 31 In 1995 Patrick Maurus, 32 a specialist of literature and translator, became associate professor at INALCO. He has played a key role in developing Korean studies about literature and translation. They all published books and translations for general audience and scholars, trained undergraduates students, and supervised Master or PhD dissertations, making of the INALCO a renowned institution for Korean studies over the years.

  contains some material about DPRK from the 1970's and 1980's, and runs two academic series published by De Boccard in Paris since 1979 : Memoires de l'Institut d'études coréennes and Cahiers de l'Institut d'études coréennes.

  : 2000's-2010's 1. A generational change At the turn of the new millenium, many among the first generation of Korean studies specialists retired : Li Ogg in 1993, Daniel Bouchez in 1993, André Fabre in 1997, BertrandChung in 1998,Marc Orange in 2002 and Lee Byoung-Joo in 2004. They were replaced and even outnumbered in almost every university and higher education institution by younger colleagues, due to the dramatic growth of under-graduates population in Korean studies departements and sections in many places in France. This new generation of Koreanists was partly trained by the first one. Following the steps of their teachers, predecessors, and senior colleagues, its members are currently strenghtening Korean studies in France. They are also very active at the international level. Their activities especially reconfirm the pivotal role of French Korean studies within European Korean studies, which foundations had been laid by the first generation.[START_REF]The Association for Korean studies in Europe (AKSE) was created in[END_REF] Generally speaking, the most representative disciplines in French Korean studies are still : history (pre-modern and modern), social anthropology, linguistics, and literature.However fields such as geography and archeology have also been represented by active colleagues since the late 1990's. In the 2000's-2010's, many successive recruitments of permanent staff in Korean studies have enriched the academic landscape.Today, the institutional organization and collective dynamics of Korean studies in France are heavily impacted by the important reforms of higher education and research that are still going on nation-wide. Following previous laws that have been enforced successively to the sector of higher education and public research in France in the 2000's-2010's, the latest law adopted on 22 July 2013 has created the Communautés d'universités et d'établissements (COMUE or Comue ; "Groups of universities and institutions"). These Comues, of which there are 21 today, have replaced progressively since 2013 the 27 Pôles de recherche et d'enseignement supérieur (PRES ; Centers for Research and Higher education) that had been created from 2006 50 to 2013. These associations of universities and higher education institutions are in charge of coordinating educational provision. They are under the umbrella of the Ministère de l'enseignement supérieur et de la recherche (Ministry of Higher Education and Research) and fall under the category of the établissements publics à caractère scientifique, culturel et professionnel (EPSCP ; "Public scientific, cultural or professional establishments"), which have legal, administrative, and financial autonomies. As far as Korean studies are concerned, one should notice that the academic community of Korea specialists is now split into different Comues, depending on their home institutions and the choice made by these institutions regarding the possible institutional associations and groups of universities since 2013. The current situation may change in the years to come.

  and achieved recently an annotated English translation of Hwadam's prose writings for the AKS 100 Classics project. She is preparing a monography on Yulgok taken as a study of Confucian culture and scholars of the Chosŏn period. She is interested in the building of great men in Confucianism, munjip, and biographies and selfnarratives. The directors of the CRC have been successively Delissen (2007-2009), Gelézeau (2009-2013) and Sancho (2013-2017). Delissen is currently the director of the IEC at the Collège de France and has also acted as the director of the joint unit "China, Korea, Japan" at the EHESS from 2009 to 2013. The CRC gathers numerous colleagues from other institutions in France and abroad: among its permanent members are colleagues from Paris Diderot University-Paris 7 and University of La Rochelle, and among its associates are colleagues from the EFEO, INALCO, Guimet Museum, 61 Hongik university, 62

  etc. It is the core research center for Korean studies in France and is well-known abroad. It invites every year two professors for onemonth stays based on two criteria : one scholar from Northern America, one scholar from South Korea, and whenever possible, one woman and one man. It hosts regularly postdoctoral fellows (usually from the Korea Foundation) and visiting researchers from different countries. Many current associate professors at INALCO and Paris Diderot University were trained and obtained their PhD from the EHESS and have been associated to the CRC. 65 In 2001 Elisabeth Chabanol, an archeologist and specialist of East Asian art history, was recruited at the EFEO. She became head of "The Seoul Centre" of the EFEO in 2002 when this branch office, first established by Bertrand Chung in 1994 at the Asian Research Institute of Korea University, was re-opened. 66 She has been conducting since 2003 groundbreaking archeological research in Kaesŏng, in collaboration with the National Bureau of Cultural Property Conservation of the DPRK and North Korean archeologists. 67 3. Université Sorbonne-Paris-Cité (USPC) The Comue Université Sorbonne-Paris-Cité (USPC) gathers the two institutions with the greatest numbers of under-graduate students in France: Paris Diderot University (Paris 7) and INALCO. In Paris Diderot University, Prost retired in 2011 and Choi in 2013. In 2004 Yannick

  There might be another recruitment at INALCO in 2018 or 2019. The students at INALCO are more numerous than in Paris Diderot. For this year, there are 183 in Licence 1, 132 in Licence 2, 97 in Licence 3, 20 in Master 1, 35 in Master 2 and 2 PhD candidates (cosupervision).

  RESCOR 1 (or "Paris Consortium"), lasted from 2010 to 2015 thanks to a five-year grant from the Korean Studies Promotion Service (KSPS). It was first based on existing networks such as the French Association of Korean Studies (Association Française pour l'étude de la Corée AFPEC) or the Association for Korean studies in Europe (AKSE). It was directed by a board composed by four members from three different parisian institutions: Paris Diderot University (Bruneton), EHESS (Gelézeau and Delissen), and INALCO (Kim Daeyeol), and

  d'Ivoire, Senegal, and Benin 89 and some of these exchanges look very promising for the future (academic exchanges between the University Paris Diderot and the University Félix Houphouët Boigny in Côte d'Ivoire). Besides, the traffic statistics for the RESCOR website have shown increasing accesses over the years from Northern America, especially the USA, and Asia (South Korea and China). The on-going program of the RESCOR 2 (2015-2020), renewed thanks to another KSPS funding, pursues a slightly different purpose. While maintaining and enriching the website and digital library, it focuses on the strenghtening of francophone Korean studies through the funding of students (Master and PhD fellowships) and the publication of teaching and research materials in French by the founding members of the RESCOR. These materials can be put online and/or published in printed formats. The founding members of the RESCOR 2 are more numerous than in the previous consortium, since they are composed today by all the permanent teaching staff of Paris Diderot University (Bruneton, Rivé-Lasan, Kim J.-O., Galmiche, Roux, Yim), EHESS (Delissen, Gelézeau, Sancho), and INALCO (Kim D., Jeong, Kim H.-Y., Thevenet, Choi). These 14 people take group decisions on all matters : recruitments of RESCOR staff (contractual service suppliers, trainees), budgetary management, student fellowships, scientific activities, communication and promotion, international relations, publications. The director of the RESCOR 2 is Kim Daeyeol.

  the certificate of Korean nationality from the Ministry of Justice for her contribution to the country. In 2010 she had formed a civic group to urge French government to return the Uigwe 儀軌. After decades of difficult negotiations, these archives were finally returned in 2011 on a five-year renewable loan basis. (Expressive words in modern Korean) and defended at Paris IV University in 1971. Among his publications one could cite : André Fabre and Shim Seun-ja, Manuel de coréen, l'Asiathèque, Paris, 1995 and André Fabre, Histoire de la Corée, L'Asiathèque, Paris, 1997. 30 Lee Byoung-jou (born 1939) translated the contemporary Korean writer Oh Jung-Hi (born 1947) : Oh Jung-Hi, L'âme du vent, Piquier, Paris, 1991 (reprint Piquier, Arles, 1995) and Le chant du pèlerin, Piquier, Paris, 1992 (reprint Piquier, Arles, 2003). She also published an antholology : Lee Byoung-jou, Anthologie de la poésie coréenne du XVI e siècle (16 세기 韓國의 歌辭와 時調), Mémoire vivante, Paris, 2010. 31 Shim-Fabre Seung-ja (born 1945) obtained her PhD dissertation, titled "Contribution à l'étude de l'accent en coréen moderne standart Corée du Sud)", at the University of Paris 3 in 1984. She co-authored with Fabre a manual for Korean : André Fabre and Shim Seun-ja, Manuel de coréen, l'Asiathèque, Paris, 1995. She published several learning materials : Dictionnaire français-coréen (French-Korean dictionary), Dictionnaire des langues'O, l'Asiathèque, Paris, 1992 ; Shim Seung-ja, Le coréen tout de suite ! ("Korean right now !" ; a manual), Pocket, Paris, 1999. 32 Patrick Maurus (born 1950) obtained a first PhD in sociology in 1984 at the University of Paris-8, "Indices du roman populaire" (Indications of popular novel). He then got a PhD in Korean studies under Daneil Bouchez's supervision at Paris-7 in 1994, "Nationalismes et modernités , la mutation de la poésie coréenne moderne, 1894-1908-1927 : recherches sociocritiques." (Nationalisms and modernities, the change of modern Korean poetry, 1894-1908-1927 : research in socio-criticism). He is a productive translator of modern literature from South and, more recently, North Korea. He translated works by Ch'ae Mansik, Yi Munyŏl , Kim Chuyŏng, Yi Ch'ŏngjun, Ch'oe Yun, Kim Sŏngjong, Cho Sehui, Pak Wansŏ, Yi Kyun-yŏng, Yi Ŏ-Ryŏng, Ch'ŏn Myŏnggwan, Choi in-Hoon, and Im Ch'ŏrun. He also authored many personal essays and scholarly works, such as La mutation de la poésie coréenne moderne ou les onomatopées fondatrices, L'Harmattan, Paris and Montreal, 1999 ; La littérature coréenne devant le modernisme et le colonialisme ou l'ère des revues (Modern Korean literature faced with modernism and colonialism, or the era of journals), L'Harmattan, Paris, 2000 ; Histoire de la littérature coréenne (History of Korean literature), Ellipses, Paris, 2005. As the managing editor of a collection about Korea called Tan'gun at l'Harmattan, he edited several collective works : Patrick Maurus (ed.), Le jour où les coréens sont devenus blonds (The day when Koreans became blond), L'Harmattan, Paris, 2007 ; Patrick Maurus (ed.), Comment peut-on être coréen ? (How can one be Korean ?), L'Harmattan, Paris, 2008.

  , another graduate from the Ecole des Langues Orientales, who was first a Chinese interpreter at the French Legation in Beijing. When Collin de Plancy was appointed the Chargé d'affaires in Korea in 1888, Courant became his assistant and stayed in Korea from 1890 to 1892. He was given the task by Collin de Plancy and Mgr Mutel, then the bishop of Korea, to catalogue all the Korean books known and available. After travelling

	throughout the Korean peninsula and collecting varied information through research
	conducted in libraries, bookstores, Buddhist temples and catalogues, he achieved the
	Bibliographie coréenne (Korean Bibliography, Han'guk sŏji 韓國書誌). The monumental
	work was published by the Ecole des Langues Orientales at Ernest Leroux publishing house
	in three volumes from 1894 and 1897 and one Supplement presenting the books published
	until 1899 was added in 1901. 11 The whole work in three volumes lists 3821 books published
	in Korea from the origins to 1890. Most of these books are minutely described through
	bibliographical notices and sometimes illustrations. The general introduction of about a
	hundred pages gives an account of Korean culture and is still read by specialists of Korea.
	Maurice Courant became a professor of Chinese at the University of Lyon in 1900,
	when a new position was created through funding from the Chamber of Commerce and
	Industry of the city of Lyon. Courant mainly taught Chinese but also Korean culture. Before
	getting a severe injury to his right hand in 1910 that prevented him from writing, he left
	several writings about Korea. For example, he wrote the first travel guide of Korea ever
	published in the West 12 and authored the 66-page 1900, Souvenir de Séoul, Corée. Le pavillon
	coréen au Champ de Mars, which presents the Korean pavilion at the Universal Exhibition of
	Paris in 1900 (1900 년 파리 만국박람회) with a rich iconography. This work was published
	in a trilingual edition (English, French, Korean) in Seoul in 2010.

The ENLOV first became part of Paris 3 University in 1971, under its new name INALCO, before being acknowledged as a grand établissement in 1985.

André Fabre's doctoral dissertation in linguistics was titled "Les mots expressifs en coréen moderne"

RESCOR and considered creating a trans-african network of francophone Korean studies in order to share materials, exchange students and teachers, raise funding, and organize academic events related to Korea in francophone Africa.90 Because of its narrow focus on Korean studies within French academia, this paper has not presented the activities of Korea specialists in France who do not hold permanent positions or are no longer in academic circles. These people are doing much for the promotion of Korea and Korean studies would not have growned without their constant and passionate efforts.

-LI Jine-mieung, "Etudes coréennes, les origines, le passé et le présent" (Korean studies : origins, past, and present): http://reseau-etudes-coree.univ-parisdiderot.fr/sites/default/files/etudes_coreennes_les_origines_le_passe_le_present.pdf -이진명, 프랑스에서의 한국어 교육의 역사적 배경과 현황 http://www.korean.go.kr/nkview/nklife/1991_2/2_13.html -DELISSEN Alain, "Re-Traversing the world of Korean Studies," Korean Society for the Promotion of Science (KSPS), Column & Issue, 2009.11.06 http://ksps.aks.ac.kr/default_eng/board_issue.php?md=V&idx=1072&cate=&startPage=35&s earch_key=&search_keyword ………………….., "Émergences coréennes" (Korean emergences), carnet RESAP-Livre blanc des recherches sur l'Asie et le Pacifique (White paper on researchs about Asia and Pacific), 9 December 2012, modified on 20 December 2012 : http://resap.hypotheses.org/1304 1 Dr. Isabelle Sancho is a permanent researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research in France (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS ; 프랑스국립과학연구센터) and has been acting as the Director of the Research Center on Korea (Centre de Recherches sur la Corée CRC ; 한국학연구센터) at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales EHESS ; 사회과학고등연구원) from September 2013 to December 2017. 2 The first edition of Hamel's work is Journael van de ongeluckighe Voyagie can't Jacht de Sperwer van Batavia ghedestineert na Tayowan in't Jaer 1653, Amsterdam, Jacob Van Velsen, 1668.

3 Hendrik Hamel, Relation du naufrage d'un vaisseau holandois, sur la coste de l'isle de Quelpaerts : avec la description du royaume de Corée, traduite du flamand, par Monsieur Minutoli, 1670. Editeur commercial, Thomas Jolly. 4 An Account of the Shipwreck of a Dutch vessel on the coast of the isle of Quelpaert, together with the description of the Kingdom of Corea, in A Collection of Voyages and Travels, 4 vols., London, John Churchill, vol IV, pp. 607-632. This edition was reprinted in the Transactions of the Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. IX, 1918, and reprinted anew in The Dutch Come To Corea by Gari Ledyard, pp. 168 ff. published