Korean literature is very rich and fascinating, but so far most of the scholarly emphasis in the West has been on the political and economic aspects of the society. Literature has been something of a poor stepchild. What we need now are more good translations. Since the 1980s, there has been an exponential growth in the number of translations available, but there is still a great deal to be done. According to Eckert, recognition of Korean literature is long overdue, and he predicts that when a senior scholar is hired to fill the chair in literature, Harvard will become the leading university in the United States in that field.
Korean literature is something of a missing link.
There's a vast body of prose and poetry that remains untranslated, but that's going to change. And once we have a senior scholar here, he or she will be able to play an important role in bringing that change about.