Memorial Minute for Carter Joel Eckert, 79 - Harvard Gazette

"Carter Joel Eckert was born on May 11, 1945, in Chicago, Illinois, to Emeline and Carter Harrison Eckert. He had an idyllic childhood at his parents' farm in Wisconsin, where he rode horses bareback. A voracious reader, Eckert developed an interest in Roman and Greek history. At Lawrence College, "salons" hosted by the medievalist William Chaney and the German intellectual historian Elisabeth Koffka shaped his intellectual outlook for the rest of his life."

"Eckert's graduate training in European history at Harvard ended abruptly when he chose the Peace Corps over the Army. During his stay in South Korea from 1969 to 1977, he augmented his Peace Corps experience by learning the language and immersing himself in Korean culture. He became curious about the relationship between Korea's autocratic government and its businesses within South Korea's monumentally rapid postwar socioeconomic transformation."

"This experience led Eckert to pursue his Ph.D. at the University of Washington under the guidance of James B. Palais. His dissertation, which became the paradigm-changing book, "Offspring of Empire," offered a history of capitalism in Korea based on close analysis of a Korean-owned textile company under the Japanese empire. Challenging dominant nationalistic scholarship and its simplistic binary of resistance and oppression, Eckert proposed a complex gray area between Korean collaboration and resistance by focusing on the intricate relationship between capital and government."

Carter Joel Eckert grew up on a Wisconsin farm and developed early interests in classical history and broad intellectual perspectives influenced by Lawrence College mentors. He interrupted Harvard graduate work to join the Peace Corps and lived in South Korea from 1969 to 1977, studying the language and culture. He investigated the interplay between authoritarian government and business during Korea's rapid postwar transformation and pursued a Ph.D. at the University of Washington under James B. Palais. His dissertation became Offspring of Empire, a paradigm-changing history of Korean capitalism that emphasized complex interactions between capital and state rather than simple resistance-collaboration binaries. He valued broad context and accessible writing.

Read at Harvard Gazette