{"title":"The Checkpoint of History: Testimony and Intertextuality in the Documentary Literature of the Korean War, 1960s–1970s","authors":"Thomas M. Ryan","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10948686","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10948686","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Korean War literature has historically encompassed a wide range of ideologically disparate texts. If canonical works of literary fiction have critically interrogated the violence of war and division, the civil war itself has continued to generate institutionalized cultural production purporting to document the crimes of the other side. Working against the categorical separation of these two traditions, this article explores their mutual and intertextual constitution. The sponsorship and commercialization of North Korean defector memoirs (kwisunja sugi) in 1960s South Korea, the article shows, influenced the development of two other popular genres of Korean War literature that alternately reinforced and undermined statist anticommunism. First, the novelist Yi Pyŏngju (1921–1992) employed kwisunja sugi as historical records in his works of the 1960s and 1970s, even as he demonstrated an awareness of the historicity and duplicity of Cold War testimony. Second, while autobiographical essays (ch’ehŏm sugi) submitted to the amateur nonfiction contest (1965–80) of the monthly Sin tonga mimicked kwisunja sugi, charting their authors’ immersion in and escape from the scene of communist violence, these texts also applied this structure to subaltern life in the militarized, capitalist South, reaffirming subversive understandings of the Korean Civil War as a reciprocal system.","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140401195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Diary of 1636: The Second Manchu Invasion of Korea","authors":"Stella Kim","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10950032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10950032","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140399367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The South Korean Military Ideological Complex: Transcendent Nationalism in Military Moral Education","authors":"Sungik Yang","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10948678","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10948678","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Since its inception, the South Korean military, like an Althusserian ideological state apparatus, has served to articulate and disseminate state ideology through what is called the military moral education or ideological training program (chŏngsin or chŏnghun kyoyuk), which instructed soldiers in Korean history, society, and politics. A close reading of moral education textbooks from the Syngman Rhee (1948–60) and Park Chung Hee (1961–79) eras thus shows the content and themes of state ideology, which went beyond simple anti-communism and can instead be summed up as “transcendent nationalism”: a potent, fascistic mixture of ethnic nationalism, anti-communism, and anti-liberal collectivism that emphasized individual loyalty and sacrifice to the supreme representative of the Korean nation, the South Korean state. As part of a larger state ideological complex and as an ideological apparatus in its own right, the military moral education program should be examined to offer a better understanding of South Korean ideology and political discourse and the rise of anti-communist nationalist ideological hegemony during the Cold War. This large-scale effort to indoctrinate South Korean men, in which military moral education played a crucial part, arguably contributed to a significant degree of societal consent behind the Park Chung Hee regime.","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140400416","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Playing with Power: American Businesspeople, Diplomacy, and Electricity in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Korea","authors":"H. Kahm, Hanmee Na Kim","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10948670","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10948670","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Henry Collbran and Harry Bostwick were the most successful American businessmen in Korea in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While they are well known for constructing the Seoul-Inch’ŏn railroad, the Seoul waterworks, and the streetcar system, their backgrounds and how they carried out their activities have not been deeply examined. Foreign businesspeople like Collbran and Bostwick possessed the technology and capital that Korea needed for modernization, but they had to navigate the volatile dynamics of domestic politics and international relations in the era of multilateral imperialism (1882–1905). This article argues that as Korea transitioned away from traditional East Asian diplomatic relations to Western-style diplomacy, Collbran and Bostwick functioned as unconventional nonstate actors who positioned themselves as unofficial American representatives to advance their business interests. While Collbran and Bostwick leveraged their position to extract the greatest possible benefits from the Koreans through mechanisms like high-interest debt traps, Emperor Kojong and Korean officials simultaneously sought to tie the American businessmen to Korea through diplomacy traps tied to concessions. These dynamics were particularly clear in the early electrification of Korea and the establishment and dissolution of the Seoul Electric Company.","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140402385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond Double Identity, beyond Periphery: Chinese Ethnic Korean Poetry as Borderland Literature","authors":"M. Xie","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10948694","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10948694","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In East Asia, Chinese ethnic Korean literature has drawn scholarly attention from Chinese, South Korean, and Japanese scholars. They mostly situate the literature within a “double identity” (ijung chŏngch’esŏng 이중정체성) that is both Korean and Chinese and examine how the literature sheds light on the relations and tensions between the two sides of the identity. This article explores the critical potential of the literature beyond the limits of a double identity and within a borderland milieu. The Yanbian Ethnic Korean Autonomous Prefecture is located along the northeast border of China and is adjacent to the Korean Peninsula, Russia, and Japan. Through a close reading of the early postwar poetry produced in the region by the representative Chinese ethnic Korean poet Ri Uk, the article examines how Chinese ethnic Korean literature may serve as a nexus of connection and negotiation among multiple cultures. Those who are familiar with the region know that these cultures have been deeply alienated from each other during multiple rounds of imperialization by regional and global powers. A close examination of the multilateral connection of a borderland ethnic literature with regional power holders offers insights into the ways cultures connect despite historical conflicts and ideological opposition.","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140400648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial Note","authors":"Jisoo M. Kim","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10950018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10950018","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140398394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial Note","authors":"Jisoo M. Kim","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10621403","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10621403","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139325913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial Note","authors":"Jisoo M. Kim","doi":"10.1111/pirs.12747","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/pirs.12747","url":null,"abstract":"The Journal of Korean Studies (JKS) is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes in all disciplines on a broad range of topics concerning Korea. One of the main contributions of JKS is to introduce new scholarship that brings diverse themes, theories, geographies, temporalities, and cultures to study Korea and the world. Authors of JKS grapple with the parameters of the field and the meaning of Korea. Although the aim is not to formulate a fixed meaning, what is clear is that scholars are continuously expanding epistemological boundaries and breaking new ground in Korean studies. Drawing on multiple disciplinary trajectories, the spring 2023 issue comprises seven articles and four book reviews. The articles in this issue explore the dynamics of broad political, social, and cultural issues—rinderpest and cross-border control, Romanticism and nationalism, national defense and technology, the developmental state and utilitarian ideology, class system and state-building, veganism and transnational mobility, and multiculturalism and cultural citizenship. These articles offer a crucial lens on the complex intersections of state, society, and culture. The first two articles, by Joseph Seeley and Kevin M. Smith, cover colonial Korea. Seeley introduces an understudied topic related to infectious disease between 1910 and the 1930s that is very relevant to the present-day issue. Using rinderpest as a lens, this article examines how the Japanese Government-General of Korea attempted to control viral “invasions” from the Sino-Korean border in the northern peninsula. Seeley shows how the colonial government implemented the modern veterinary regime and Koreans resisted rinderpest outbreaks. This article offers an opportunity to learn from history how viral diseases were dealt with in the early twentieth century, which resonates with today’s COVID-19 in the twenty-first century. Shifting to the analysis of colonial literature, Im Hwa’s Hyŏnhaet’an, Smith examines the maritime poetry that discusses the strait that","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42072772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Voluntary Outsiders in Their Anthropocentric Nation: Korean Vegan Youth Navigating between National Ruins and Transnational Mobilities","authors":"Su Young Choi","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10213221","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10213221","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This study asks why and how a segment of young people have led the emergence of veganism in contemporary South Korea since the mid-2010s, and what this appearance means—especially against the backdrop of the wide interpretation of Korean youth as disillusioned and depoliticized individuals who distrust the possibility of any positive social change. The article argues that the youth-driven Korean veganism has played a role in filling the void of the postdevelopmental, postindustrial, and postliberation era of climate crisis and planetary challenges by working as a broad vision for a good life and meaningful social change. Based on qualitative interviews, textual analysis, and participant observation, the article shows why veganism has worked as a way of alternative survival for vegan youth, how veganism as the source of voice and personal growth has been validated and cultivated by the transnational youth culture, and what has enabled veganism's solidarity from and coalition with other social movements. The article contributes to diversifying the representation of Korean youth and their agencies beyond the ruins and pessimism of the neoliberalized Korean society.","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47671044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gender Politics at Home and Abroad: Protestant Modernity in Colonial-Era Korea","authors":"Hayun Cho","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10211205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10211205","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41909652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}