EVENTS

About the Speaker

Prof. Edward J. Baker was the Associate Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute for 25 years. The Institute is an independent foundation located at Harvard. It is dedicated to advancing higher education in Asia in the humanities and social sciences, with special attention to the study of Asian culture. Annually it brings 40 or more scholars from Asian universities to do research at Harvard. Baker is now a Member of the Committee of Special Advisors of the Harvard Korea Institute and an Associate of the HYI. After retiring from the HYI in 2006 he taught East Asian and Korean history in Seoul at Hanyang University (2007-2009) and the College of Liberal Studies, Seoul National University (2010). 

Prof. Baker’s interest in Korea began with Peace Corps service as an English teacher at the College of Education of SNU 1966-68. He has lived in Korea for more than 10 years and has traveled widely in East Asia. He has degrees from Colby College (1964 B.A. in history), Yale Law School (1971 J.D.) and Harvard (1973 M.A. in Regional Studies-East Asia). He was on the staff of the Subcommittee on International Organizations (the so-called “Fraser committee”) of the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on International Relations during its Investigation of Korean-American Relations in 1977-78.

Prof. Baker has been a close observer of political, economic, social and cultural developments in South Korea and East Asia since the 1960s. He was deeply involved in the struggle for democracy in South Korea in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, in particular working to make that struggle known in the US. He worked with Kim Dae-jung, Kim Young-Sam and many other activists. He was a member of the board of Asia Watch (now Human Rights Watch—Asia) from its foundation in 1985 until the late 1990s and was Amnesty International’s US South Korea coordinator from 1979-91. He writes and speaks on Korean affairs, particularly politics and human rights.