James Palais, 72, leading Korea scholar

Longtime University of Washington Professor James B. Palais discovered his life's calling almost by chance.

Enrolled at the Army Language School in Monterey, Calif., during the 1950s, he intended to study Russian, but the classes were full. He opted for Korean instead.

That would prove fortunate for students of Korean history, as Professor Palais went on to become one of the field's foremost scholars, mentoring a generation of academics and writing books still regarded as authoritative.

Professor Palais, who continued to teach part time after his retirement from the UW in 2001, died Sunday after a long illness. He was 72.

With his Massachusetts accent and gruff demeanor, Professor Palais often proved intimidating to his students. But those who displayed a commitment to their studies found him a generous teacher.

"His door was open all the time. He never threw us out. I don't know that he slept," said Michael Robinson, professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University, who studied under Professor Palais for nearly a decade and plans to dedicate a forthcoming book to him.

Professor Palais' own exhaustive research led him to study texts written in Korean, Chinese and Japanese.

He wrote books on Korea's history and human rights, most notably the 1,230-page "Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions" — a work covering 500 years of Korean history. The book won the John Whitney Hall Book Prize as the best book on Japan or Korea in 1998 by the Association for Asian Studies.

"He was extremely rigorous. He was uncompromising and he insisted on a depth of research grounded in original sources," said Clark Sorensen, associate professor in the UW's Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies and chairman of the Korea Studies program.

Some of his writings were controversial, such as his characterization of Korea as a slave society for part of its history. That was unpopular with some Korea-based scholars, but Sorensen said even they had to respect Professor Palais' meticulous research.

Born in Cambridge, Mass., in 1934, Professor Palais graduated from high school in Brookline, Mass., and from Harvard in 1955. He joined the Army and enrolled in the language school where he learned Korean. He went on to receive a master's degree from Yale and a Ph.D. from Harvard.

He met his wife, Jane, in 1956, and the two were married three years later.

His son, Mike Palais, recalls his father as a tireless scholar whose tough exterior belied a "teddy bear" inside. After teaching all day, Professor Palais would stay up late reading, sometimes taking a break to watch late-night movies. He and his wife would often attend a couple of films each weekend.

The UW hired Professor Palais in 1968, and his arrival helped make the school one of the most respected Korean-history centers in the nation. He could often be seen around campus on a motorcycle, and he was fond of smoking cigars in his office. Over more than three decades, he trained many in the current generation of Korean-history scholars.

After his retirement from UW in 2001, he served as dean for international studies at Sungkyunkwan University in Korea for three years.

The James B. Palais Professorship of Korean History was established in his honor at the UW.

In addition to his wife, Jane Palais, son Mike Palais and daughter-in-law Sandra Evans of Tacoma, Professor Palais is survived by daughter Julie Schneider of California and one grandson.

There was no funeral at Professor Palais' request, but the UW is organizing a memorial. No date has been set. Donations in Professor Palais' name can be made to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society or the American Cancer Society.

Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or jbrunner@seattletimes.com