معرفی
Dr. Anders Karlsson is a distinguished scholar of Korean history at SOAS University of London, where he has been a faculty member since 2000. He is affiliated with the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics and the Centre of Korean Studies. His academic career has established him as a leading Western expert on Choson Korea (1392-1910), with particular expertise in legal history, statecraft, and social institutions of the period.
Dr. Karlsson received his PhD in Korean history from Stockholm University in 2000 with a dissertation on the Hong Kyongnae Rebellion, which erupted in the North-western part of the Korean peninsula in 1812. His doctoral research established the foundation for his subsequent scholarship on rural society, famine relief, and local administration in late Choson Korea.
Dr. Karlsson's research focuses on the social, institutional and intellectual history of Choson Korea. His work explores Confucian statecraft, famine and disaster relief mechanisms, penal law, rural unrest and rebellion, and writing systems. His scholarship is characterized by meticulous archival research and innovative theoretical approaches that bridge historical, legal, and cultural studies perspectives. He has made significant contributions to understanding how law functioned as an instrument of statecraft in premodern Korea, particularly examining the relationship between legal theory and practice, and how social status influenced legal outcomes.
His publication record demonstrates a clear evolution from early work on peasant rebellions to increasingly sophisticated analyses of legal and administrative systems. The most recent fifteen years of his scholarship show a pronounced focus on legal history, with particular attention to how Confucian ideology shaped legal development and implementation. His articles reveal expertise in analyzing primary sources in Korean, Chinese, and Swedish, reflecting his unique position as a European scholar deeply immersed in East Asian historical materials.
Dr. Karlsson has supervised numerous doctoral students working on Korean history topics, including:
- Lee H. - "The effect of the genre-based approach on KFL advanced learners' writing and reading"
- Jang H.J. - "Exploring the Development of Intercultural Competence of University Students Majoring in Korean"
- Kilkelly P. - "Mainstream culture and the inculturation of Catholicism in late Chosŏn Korea"
- Choi Y.-C. - "A History of Protestant theory of liberty in Korea, 1886-1917"
- Jin S.P. - "Korean neutralisation attempts (1882-1907): retracing the struggle for survival and imperial intrigues"
- Verdier-Shin M.-L. - "Contextualised mission: the South Korean evangelical response to the humanitarian crisis in North Korea (1995-2012)"
- Song S.K. - "Intellectuals and the state: the resilience and decline of Neo-Confucianism as state ideology in Joseon Korea"
At SOAS, Dr. Karlsson teaches courses on Korean history, contemporary Korean culture and society, and Chinese characters (Hanja) as they are used in Korean. His teaching reflects his deep engagement with both historical and contemporary aspects of Korean studies, providing students with comprehensive perspectives on Korean civilization. He also maintains a significant profile as a literary translator, having translated Korean novels into Swedish for 25 years, including recent works by Han Kang, the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate.
