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Contextualizing Maurice Courant, Pioneer of Korean Studies in Europe

The main purpose of this article is to identify the role Courant played in early European understanding of Korea by examining his writings of Korea-Japan relations and locating them in the intellectual context in which they were produced. The main body of this article has been divided into three separate parts. The first examines Courant’s writings of ancient Korea-Japan relations focusing on the theory of Mimana that Japan ruled southern Korea roughly from the fourth to the sixth centuries through the intermediary of Mimana. The second part takes a look at Courant’s description of the Korean envoys to Japan and the Japanese settlement in Pusan in the early modern period and his view of the overall relationship between the two countries during this period. The last analyzes Courant’s publications on the contemporary issues and problems of Korea and in doing so tries to trace how his attitude toward Korea and Japan’s advance into the Korean peninsula changed over time. Courant’s importance, this article will argue, is not limited to his bibliography of Korean literature but lies in his disrupting the established epistemic system that produced and circulated knowledge of Korea in late nineteenth-century Europe.