The Mad Historian: The Mission and Responsibilities of History Makers in a Fractured World
Albert L. Park is the Bank of America Associate Professor of Pacific Basin Studies at Claremont McKenna College. As a historian of modern Korea and East Asia, his current research project focuses on the roots of environmentalism in modern Korean history and its relationship to locality and local autonomy. His book project is tentatively titled "Imagining Nature and the Creation of Environmental Movements in Modern Korea." He is the author of "Building a Heaven on Earth: Religion, Activism and Protest in Japanese Occupied Korea" and is the co-editor of "Encountering Modernity: Christianity and East Asia."
Park is the co-founder of EnviroLab Asia—a Henry Luce Foundation-funded initiative at the Claremont Colleges that researches environmental issues in Asia through a cross-disciplinary lens. He is the co-founder and co-editor of "Environments of East Asia"—a Cornell University Press, multidisciplinary book series that covers environmental issues and questions of East Asia. He also serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Asian Studies.
Park is the recipient of four Fulbright Fellowships for Research, an Abe Fellowship (Social Science Research Council and Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership), and fellowships from the Korea Foundation and the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago.
A native of Chicago, he received his B.A. with honors from Northwestern University, an M.A. from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago.
Professor Park's Athenaeum presentation celebrates his installation ceremony as the Bank of America Associate Professor of Pacific Basin Studies at Claremont McKenna College.