Sheila Miyoshi Jager

Sheila Miyoshi Jager (born 1963) is an American historian. She is a Professor of East Asian Studies at Oberlin College, author of two books on Korea, co-editor of a third book on Asian nations in the post-Cold War era, and a forthcoming book on great power competition in northeast Asia at the turn of the 19th-20th century. She is a well-known historian of Korea and East Asia.

Sheila Miyoshi Jager
Jager speaking at the 2013 National Book Festival
Born1963 (age 59–60)
Alma materBennington College
Middlebury College
University of Chicago
OccupationHistorian
EmployerOberlin College
SpouseJiyul Kim
Children4

Early life

Sheila Miyoshi Jager was born in 1963.[1] She is of Dutch and Japanese ancestry.[2] She graduated from Bennington College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1984.[3] She earned a Master of Arts degree from Middlebury College in 1985, and a PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1994.[3]

Career

Jager is a Professor of East Asian Studies at Oberlin College.[3] She is the author of several books about East Asian history.[4]

Her first book, Narratives of Nation Building in Korea: A Genealogy of Patriotism, was published in 2003. In it, Jager analyzes Korea through the axes of history, gender, and nationalism, by using both theory and data.[5] She looks at male identity through the figures of Shin Chaeho and Yi Kwang-su between 1910 and 1945 in the first part; the female body as a metonymy for the Korean body politic in the second part; and the leaders of South Korea (Park Chung Hee, Chun Doo-hwan, Roh Tae-woo) and North Korea (Kim Il Sung) in the third part.[5][6] In a review for The Journal of Asian Studies, Roy Richard Grinker, a Professor of Anthropology at George Washington University, called it "a coherent, well-argued, and well-researched study of Korea nationalism", but he deplored, "This book is not long, yet the scope is so extensive that it demands more detailed and wide-ranging analyses that might complicate her arguments."[5] He also criticized her use of Korean literature as reductive.[5] In a review for Pacific Affairs, Chiho Sawada also criticized the book for being too short (only 140 pages), but he added that it was "an excellent text for courses on not only Korea but postcolonial histories and national/gender identities."[6] In a review for the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Swiss academic Martina Deuchler called it "a sophisticated and well-written study," although she warned "the book is not an easy read."[7] A Korean translation is forthcoming from Namu yŏnp'il Publisher (도서출판 나무연필).

Her second book, Ruptured Histories: War, Memory and the Post-Cold War in Asia, co-edited with Rana Mitter, was published in 2007. It is a collection of essays by various scholars about the state of Asia since the end of the Cold War.[8] In a review for The China Quarterly, Parks M. Coble, a professor of history at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, concludes that, contrary to Europe, there is no common thread between the Asian nations analyzed in this volume.[8] Nevertheless, in Pacific Affairs, Associate Professor Kerry Smith of Brown University suggests reading the entire book from cover to cover, not just certain chapters relevant to one's personal interests in specific nations.[9] Reviewing it for The Journal of Asian Studies, Erik Harms, an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Yale University (then at Duke University), described it as "an insightful collection of expertly researched and theoretically informed case studies from Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, and Vietnam."[10] He also noted, "We see how apparently local developments emerge within broader international, regional, and global contexts."[10] In The Journal of Japanese Studies, Christopher Goto-Jones of Leiden University highlights Mitter and Jager's "attempt to wrestle the question of war memory away from its near exclusive focus on the singular rupture represented by Japan's defeat in 1945"; instead, they attempt to show how "the continuously shifting international environment impacts the formation (and utility) of national (and transnational and subnational) narratives."[11]

Her third book, Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea, was published in 2013 simultaneously by Profile Books in the UK and Norton in the U.S.[12][13] It was a selection for the 2013 National Book Festival and featured in a C-Span Book TV After Words interview.[14][15] The book covered the history of the Korean peninsula from its liberation in 1945 to 2012, portraying the confrontation between the two Koreas as a competition for legitimacy. The Economist called it the "most balanced and comprehensive account of the Korean War."[16] Mark Atwood's review for the New York Times remarked it as "superb...elegant and balanced" while Eliot Cohen, reviewing for The Wall Street Journal, wrote "Brothers at War does an exceptionally good job of bringing the conflict to life."[17][18] In a review for Foreign Affairs, Andrew J. Nathan, a Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, who thought the book was a "magisterial history of the Korean War," noted that Jager suggested atrocities were committed not only by the North Korean Army, but also by the South Korean Army and the United States Army during the Korean War, a conflict which formally ended in 1953 but has never been fully resolved.[19] She also suggested that North Korea may have to become a province of China to survive economically.[19] Brothers at War was chosen as one of three Best International Relations Books of the Year in the Asia and the Pacific category by Foreign Affairs.[20] A Dutch translation was published in 2020 by Omniboek under the title Broederstrijd in Korea: Het oneindige conflict tussen Noord en Zuid.[21]

Her fourth book, The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia was published in May 2023 by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. The publisher described it as "A dramatic new telling of the dawn of modern East Asia, placing Korea at the center of a transformed world order wrought by imperial greed and devastating wars."[22] A Korean translation is due out in 2024 from Ghil Publisher (도서출판길)

In addition to academic articles, she has written op-eds, columns, and book reviews for The New York Times, Boston Globe, Politico Magazine, and The New York Times Sunday Book Review.[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]

She has advised and appeared in two documentaries on the Korean War, The Battle of Chosin (WGBH/PBS, 2016) and Korea: The Neverending War (PBS/BBC/ARTE, 2019).[31][32]

Personal life

Jager's Dutch paternal grandparents, Hendrik and Geesje Jager, were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1996. The Yad Vashem online entry reads,

"In order to avoid deportation, the parents of seven-year-old Margaretha Celine (Greetje) de Haas (later Gosschalk) handed her over in August 1943 to a nurse who was active in a nurses’ Resistance group. The Resistance group was connected with an underground movement in the province of Groningen, and Hendrik Jager was one of the people who traveled to Amsterdam to maintain contact between the two groups. Hendrik’s main task was to find families willing to hide Jewish children. He would wait at the train station in Groningen and then escort the children either to the address he had found or, temporarily, to his home until a permanent place could be located. Since he had not found a family who would take her, Hendrik decided to take Greetje in himself and she stayed with him and his wife, Geesje, for three years. Hendrik and Geesje lived in Hoogezand, Groningen, and had two sons, Henk and Bernd, who regarded Greetje as a sister. The family never received any payment for looking after her...Hendrik found hiding places for approximately 50 Jewish children all around the province. After the war, the Jagers applied to become Greetje’s guardians, but in 1946, close friends of her parents were awarded custody. Although they were not related, Greetjeand called her guaridians 'uncle' and 'aunt,' and the Jagers remained close, even after she got married and immigrated to the United States...The Jagers kept in touch with her husband, Eddy, and their son and daughter after Greetje’s untimely death in 1971. On October 10, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Hendrik Jager and his wife, Geesje Jager-ten Brinke, as Righteous Among the Nations."[33]

In the 1980s, Jager lived with Barack Obama, then a community organizer in Chicago.[34][2] In winter 1986, Obama asked her parents if he could marry her, but they objected.[34] Shortly after he entered the Harvard Law School, Obama proposed to Jager a second time, but she rejected him.[2][4] Their relationship was only made public in May 2017, several months after the end of Obama's two-term presidency, in David Garrow's Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama.[4] Notably, David Garrow admitted that he had never seen Obama's letters to Sheila Miyoshi Jager.[35][36]

Jager is married to Jiyul Kim, a retired U.S. Army veteran and a history instructor at Oberlin College. They have four children and reside in Ohio.

Fellowships, grants, visiting positions, and honors
  • 2020 Smith Richardson International Security & Foreign Policy grant (The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia book project)[37]
  • 2016-17 Member, Advisory Board to the Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy, Wilson Center, Washington DC (resigned in protest of Charles K. Armstrong's membership on the same board and continued association with the Wilson Center[38] despite his misconduct for source fabrication and plagiarism.)
  • 2014-15 Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship (Seoul)[39][40]
  • 2013 Library of Congress National Book Festival, Washington, DC[41]
  • 2006-08 Visiting Research Professor of National Security, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA[42][43][44]
  • 1998-99 American Council of Learned Societies/Social Science Research Council (ACLS/SSRC) International Postdoctoral fellowship (Seoul)[45][46]
  • 1988 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship (South Korea)[47]

Works

References
  1. "Jager, Sheila Miyoshi". WorldCat. Retrieved 11 May 2017.
  2. Hosie, Rachel (3 May 2017). "BEFORE MICHELLE: THE STORY OF BARACK OBAMA'S PROPOSAL TO SHEILA MIYOSHI JAGER". The Independent. Retrieved 11 May 2017.
  3. "Sheila Miyoshi Jager". Oberlin College. 24 Feb 2023. Retrieved 24 Feb 2023.
  4. Tobias, Andrew J. (May 3, 2017). "Oberlin College professor received unsuccessful marriage proposal from Barack Obama in 1980s, new biography reveals". The Plain Dealer. Retrieved 11 May 2017.
  5. Grinker, Roy Richard (February 2004). "Review: Narratives of Nation Building in Korea: A Genealogy of Patriotism by Sheila Miyoshi Jager". The Journal of Asian Studies. 63 (1): 205–207. doi:10.1017/s0021911804000567. JSTOR 4133344. S2CID 163316585.
  6. Sawada, Chiho (Summer 2004). "Review: Narratives of Nation Building in Korea: A Genealogy of Patriotism by Sheila Miyoshi Jager". Pacific Affairs. 77 (2): 352–354. JSTOR 40022534.
  7. Deuchler, Martina (2006). "Review: Narratives of Nation Building in Korea: A Genealogy of Patriotism by Sheila Miyoshi Jager". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 69 (1): 188–189. doi:10.1017/s0041977x06470075. JSTOR 20182019. S2CID 161339805.
  8. Coble, Parks M. (December 2007). "Review: Ruptured Histories: War, Memory, and the Post-Cold War in Asia by Sheila Miyoshi Jager; Rana Mitter". The China Quarterly (192): 1046–1048. doi:10.1017/S0305741007002421. JSTOR 20192877. S2CID 153350166.
  9. Smith, Kerry (Winter 2008). "Review: Ruptured Histories: War, Memory, and the Post-Cold War in Asia by Sheila Miyoshi Jager; Rana Mitter". Pacific Affairs. 81 (4): 604–605. JSTOR 40377634.
  10. Harms, Erik Lind (February 2008). "Review: Ruptured Histories: War, Memory, and the Post: Cold War in Asia by Sheila Miyoshi Jager; Rana Mitter". The Journal of Asian Studies. 67 (1): 251–252. doi:10.1017/s0021911808000090. JSTOR 20203317. S2CID 161415996.
  11. Goto-Jones, Christopher (Winter 2011). "Review: War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945-2005 by Franziska Seraphim". The Journal of Japanese Studies. 37 (1): 191–197. JSTOR 41337659.
  12. "Brothers at War". Profile Books. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  13. "Brothers at War". wwnorton.com. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  14. Sheila Miyoshi Jager: 2013 National Book Festival, retrieved 2023-02-06
  15. "After Words with Sheila Miyoshi Jager | C-SPAN.org". www.c-span.org. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  16. "The best doggone army". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  17. Lawrence, Mark Atwood (2013-08-30). "Land of Mystery". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  18. Cohen, Eliot A. "Book Review: Brothers at War". WSJ. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  19. Nathan, Andrew J. (November–December 2013). "Review: Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea by SHEILA MIYOSHI JAGER". Foreign Affairs. 92 (6): 189–190. JSTOR 23527062.
  20. "Best International Relations Books of 2013". Foreign Affairs. 2015-04-16. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  21. "Broederstrijd in Korea". Uitgeverij Omniboek (in Dutch). Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  22. "The Other Great Game — Sheila Miyoshi Jager". www.hup.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  23. Jager, Sheila Miyoshi (2013-03-14). "Opinion | Domestic Politics, Pyongyang-Style". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  24. Jager, Sheila Miyoshi (June 30, 2013). "Which is the real Korea?". BostonGlobe.com. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  25. Jager, Sheila Miyoshi (2016-01-15). "'The Invitation-Only Zone,' by Robert S. Boynton". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  26. Jager, Sheila Miyoshi. "What Trump Needs to Know About North Korea's History". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  27. Jager, Sheila Miyoshi. "The Strange, Dark History of North Korea and the Olympics". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  28. Jager, Sheila Miyoshi (2018-07-13). "North Korea: Where Everything Is Forbidden Unless It Is Allowed". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  29. Jager, Sheila Miyoshi. "What Trump Needs To Know About the North Koreans and Hanoi". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  30. Jager, Sheila Miyoshi (2022-08-30). "When Japan Surrendered, Wars Broke Out". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  31. "The Battle of Chosin | American Experience | PBS". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  32. KOREA: The Never-Ending War | PBS, retrieved 2023-02-06
  33. "The Righteous Among The Nations". The Righteous Among The Nations. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
  34. "Sheila Miyoshi Jager: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know". Heavy.com. 3 May 2017. Retrieved 11 May 2017.
  35. Samuels, David (August 3, 2023). "The Obama Factor". www.tabletmag.com. Tablet. Retrieved August 20, 2023. The letters to and from Sheila. Are we ever going to see them? Not in my lifetime or yours.
  36. Rutz, David; Flood, Brian (August 11, 2023). "Obama biographer on letters to 44's ex he hopes the public never sees, how Michelle changed since Chicago days". www.foxnews.com. Tablet. Retrieved August 20, 2023. Now, no one has ever seen Barack's letter to Sheila Jager.
  37. "The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia - SRF". Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  38. "Charles K. Armstrong | Wilson Center". www.wilsoncenter.org. Retrieved 2023-02-23.
  39. "Sheila Jager | Fulbright Scholar Program". fulbrightscholars.org. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  40. "New Research in South Korea". Oberlin College and Conservatory. 2016-11-07. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  41. "Sheila Miyoshi Jager: 2013 National Book Festival". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  42. Jager, Sheila (2006-12-01). "Iraqi Security Forces and Lessons from Korea". Articles & Editorials.
  43. Jager, Sheila (2007-11-01). "On the Uses of Cultural Knowledge". Monographs, Collaborative Studies, & IRPs.
  44. Jager, Sheila (2007-04-01). "The Politics of Identity: History, Nationalism, and the Prospect for Peace in Post-Cold War East Asia". Monographs, Collaborative Studies, & IRPs.
  45. "Sheila Jager". ACLS. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  46. "Items Vol. 52 No. 4 (1998) by SSRC's Items & Issues - Issuu". issuu.com. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  47. "Grantee Directory". us.fulbrightonline.org. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
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