WGI publication in the Asian Journal of Sport History & Culture
Cand. phil. Yoonkyu Song has published an article online first in the Asian Journal of Sport History & Culture together with WGI Vice President for Olympic Sports, Michael Krüger. The title of the article is Sport Politics in Divided Nations: A Comparative Study on German and Korean Sport. Development During the Cold War. The journal is a prestigious peer-reviewed cultural and sports science journal with a wide readership throughout Asia, especially in China.
The publication is an important contribution to understanding the development of sport in Germany and Korea as “divided nations.” The article was commissioned by the editor of the Asian Journal, the internationally renowned Professor Fan Hong, and is aimed at a broad and rapidly growing specialist audience interested in the history of sport in Asia. Colleagues in Southeast Asia, especially in China, Japan, and Korea, but increasingly also in India as a possible host of the 2036 Olympic Games, are very interested in Germany’s experiences in dealing with the development of sports during the Cold War and in divided Germany, as well as the processes of reunification. In Korea in particular, developments in Germany are seen as a kind of blueprint for divided Korea. One of the goals of Yoonkyu Song’s doctoral thesis is to examine this comparison from a historical and critical perspective.
The paper itself deals with the problem of comparative historical research from a theoretical and methodological point of view and applies it specifically to sports policy in Korea and Germany. The paper therefore provides new insights and perspectives for sports history research, both from a theoretical and methodological point of view and from a sports history perspective. The publication of the paper is an important step toward Yoonkyu Song’s dissertation, not least because it shows that Yoonkyu’s topic and approach are resonating with the scientific community.