Korean Studies

The Korean Collection supports the program in Korean Studies, a growing component of East Asian Studies at Duke and Duke’s overall mission.

Almost exclusively composed of English language materials and gifts in Korean from individuals, various academic institutions, the Korea Foundation and the Korea Research Foundation until about 2000, the collection now holds about 5,000 monographic volumes, 100 periodicals, and over 300 films. Duke’s Korean Collection is the only Korean collection in the southeastern United States.

The Korean collection covers a wide range of subjects in the social sciences and humanities with strengths in history, literature and art history, culture, cinema and performing arts, dovetailing with strengths in the Chinese and Japanese collections as well as reflecting faculty and student interests. The English language collection is strong in the social sciences, reflecting Korea’s recent economic strength and scholarly interest in the process of democratization. The reference collection is strong in language, history, premodern and modern Korean literature. There are also materials on the Japanese colonial experience in Korea, both culturally and economically/politically, in Korean and Japanese.

The Korean Collection supports teaching and research through the Korean Studies program, East Asian Studies, and Korea-related studies. The Korean Collection is housed in the East Asian Collection at the second floor of Perkins/Bostock Library while materials in western languages are located in the main stacks of Perkins/Bostock Library and departmental libraries.

For more information on searching for Korean materials, please see the Search Tips. If you have any suggestions for the Korean Collection such as new books or journals, please contact the Korean Studies Librarian.