{"title":"Coethnic, Multicultural, or Cosmopolitan? Cultural Citizenship, Enfranchisement, and the Contested Category of Korean-Chinese in Globalizing South Korea","authors":"Seung-mi Han","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10213234","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10213234","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article deals with the Korean-Chinese politics of recognition in contemporary South Korea. Unlike North Korean settlers who are \"technically\" embraced from the outset as coethnics, the Korean-Chinese are located in the interstices of the Act on the Employment of Foreign Workers, the Overseas Koreans Act, and the Multicultural Families Support Act. By analyzing how the Korean-Chinese politics of belonging is mediated by competing models of nationalism, multiculturalism, and political participation that Korean-Chinese bring with them from the People's Republic of China and encounter anew in South Korea, the article puts into relief the various choices available to these migrants and their emotionally-charged disagreements over how to define themselves culturally and politically. Juxtaposing Korean-style multicultural policy with a curiously muted cultural distinctiveness in the Korean-Chinese politics of recognition, the article argues for the importance of cherishing cultural diversity in the public sphere, even for the coethnic politics of belonging.","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":"43301398","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":"Social (Im)mobility and Bureaucratic Failings: Family Background and the Sŏngbun System in North Korea","authors":"Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10213208","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10213208","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article argues that North Korea's system for family background registration, sŏngbun, has historically been more complex than commonly believed. Using oral testimonies, it shows that the registration process, as seen from a grassroots perspective, involved and likely still involves a great deal of social turmoil. The essay focuses on the period before the famine of the 1990s, often not sufficiently investigated in scholarship on North Korean society. The sŏngbun registration process, by contrast, constitutes a chaotic, messy chapter in North Korean social history, calling the narrative of stability into question. The article also situates North Korea in the broader history of state-building, showing that attempts by states to classify the population and make it legible often involve a great deal of chaos, flaws, and dynamic change. Cataloging the population along the lines of political order was not merely a project of sheer repression but also one of scientific, rational, and forward-looking state-building. Although some citizens manipulated the process to their benefit, several interviewees attested to worse outcomes due to bureaucratic mistakes and reinvestigations of their sŏngbun by the state.","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":"42946052","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":"Cold War Cosmopolitanism: Period Style in 1950s Korean Cinema by Christina Klein (review)","authors":"Jeong Eun Annabel We","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10211214","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10211214","url":null,"abstract":"what Choi has termed Protestant modernity be inextricable from the history of American empire? One could note that the approaches of these Protestant missionaries are deeply colonial in their fixation with managing the gendered other—in this case, native Korean women. More attention to how the nexus of the colonizer and the colonized haunts the dynamics of organized religion—even if used as a means for native women’s self-actualization—could add to the impressive contributions this book makes. Gender Politics shares critical sensibilities with a robust body of postcolonial and feminist work that examines how native subjects negotiate their own ambiguous agencies under empire and theorizes womanhood from a non-West-centric feminist perspective. Works with similar interventions include Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan’s Scattered Hegemonies (1994), Saba Mahmood’s Politics of Piety (2011), and Sungyun Lim’s Rules of the House (2018). The book is also in conversation with Korean cultural studies on New Women such as Ji-Eun Lee’s Women Pre-Scripted (2015) and Sunyoung Park’s The Proletarian Wave (2015). In addition, Gender Politics joins a dialogue generated by scholars who have been pushing the boundaries of what constitutes Koreanness beyond an ethnonational understanding. These scholars include David S. Roh, who examines connections between Zainichi and Korean American literatures in Minor Transpacific (2021), and Yoon Sun Yang, who in From Domestic Women to Sensitive Young Men (2017) explores how individuality was translated into Korean in the form of the early colonial domestic novel inflected by Japanese and Chinese literary traditions. Choi’s Gender Politics will be useful not only for specialists of colonial-era Korea but also for postcolonial and feminist scholars working in a variety of transnational cultural contexts.","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":"47865000","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":"Against the Chains of Utility: Antiutilitarian Sacrifice in Cho Sehŭi's A Little Ball Launched by the Dwarf","authors":"Serk-Bae Suh","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10213195","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10213195","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article looks at Cho Sehŭi's novel A Little Ball Launched by the Dwarf (1978) as the epitome of antiutilitarian literature in the 1970s. During the period, the developmental state invoked the rhetoric of sacrifice to justify its demand on the people and society for devotion and commitment to the state-led economic development. This idea of sacrifice lies at the heart of what this article terms \"utilitarian ideology.\" The utilitarian ideology indicates the set of premises on which the developmental state privileged production over consumption, work over leisure, accumulation over expenditure, and the future over the present. This article highlights a moment of antiutilitarian sacrifice in The Dwarf that defies the instrumental reasoning that lies at the heart of the utilitarian ideology. In doing so, the article does not merely take issue with the state ideology of 1970s South Korea. By drawing from Georges Bataille's thoughts on sacrifice and literature, the article criticizes utilitarian sacrifice, which not only lay at the core of this ideology but continues to pervade today's society. In the end, the article locates a new possibility of literature's relevance to society in the moment of antiutilitarian sacrifice radiating from The Dwarf","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":"46338372","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":"Defender of the Nation, Champion of Science: The Agency for Defense Development as a Nexus for the Technological Transformation of South Korea","authors":"Peter Banseok Kwon","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10213182","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10213182","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The Agency for Defense Development (ADD) has functioned as South Korea's central institute for weapons research and development (R&D) since 1970, when it was established by the Park Chung Hee regime (1961–79). As argued in this article, this quasi-private, quasi-public military institute also fostered major advancements of science and technology during the transformative decade of South Korea's \"militarized industrialization,\" the 1970s, with a lasting impact on the private sector and business relations with the state. Drawing from in-person interviews with living scientists who worked on military projects of the Park state, as well as official records of the ADD and recently declassified government documents, the article tells the story of the ADD's founding and details how, as a key player in Park's pursuit of security independence, the agency spurred technological innovation and industrialization. Through weapons development, the ADD localized R&D, facilitated technological collaboration, established quality control and standardization methods within corporations, and enhanced the scientific workforce with advanced training, altogether promoting the scientization of the Korean private sector. By merging state and business efforts, and by combining military with civilian strengths, the ADD led a process of national scientization and technological governance that still operates at the heart of Korean economic growth today.","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":"46980022","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":"Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea: Between Genealogical Time and the Domestic Everyday by Ksenia Chizhova (review)","authors":"Hyunhee Park","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10213247","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10213247","url":null,"abstract":"Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea is the first English-language study of Korean lineage novels, lengthy fictional narratives written in vernacular Korean, that flourished from the late seventeenth century through the early twentieth century. The lineage novel is not easily accessible for general readers in Korea today, primarily because of the sheer number of volumes, sometimes exceeding one hundred per work. Ksenia Chizhova, however, succeeds in demonstrating the historical and cultural significance of the lineage novel in the broad context of the kinship culture of early modern Korea. She suggests Korean patrilineal kinship was not only a social structure but also a process that was constantly in the making through aesthetic and textual reiterations. The lineage novel for its part represents textual practices that give expressions to the affective dimension of kinship. Chizhova strategically explores six representative examples of the lineage novel: The Pledge at the Banquet of Moon-Gazing Pavilion (Wanwŏl hoemaeng yŏn 玩月會 盟宴), The Remarkable Reunion of Jade Mandarin Ducks (Ogwŏn chaehap kiyŏn 玉鴛再合奇緣) and its sequel, and The Record of Two Heroes: The Brothers Hyŏn (Hyŏn ssi yangung ssangnin ki 玄氏兩雄雙麟記) and its two sequels. She argues that lineage novels typically show a long and convoluted trajectory in which unruly feelings dissonant with the prescriptive kinship are brought into alignment with kinship norms, ultimately confirming the legitimacy and perpetuity of lineage. The book consists of three parts. In part 1, Chizhova historicizes the lineage novel by placing it within the web of kinship texts of various kinds and within the reading and writing culture of elite women. In the first chapter, Chizhova","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":"42360427","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":"Traffic in Asian Women","authors":"Yumi Moon","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10213260","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10213260","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":"42185789","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":"Cattle, Viral Invasions, and State-Society Relations in a Colonial Korean Borderland","authors":"J. Seeley","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10213156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10213156","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:For early twentieth-century Koreans, one of the most feared invaders to breach the country's northern border with China was the tiny viral pathogen Rinderpest morbillivirus (rinderpest, or cattle plague). This study examines the social consequences of rinderpest outbreaks along the colonial Sino-Korean border and the methods undertaken by the Japanese Government-General of Korea to control viral \"invasions\" from Manchuria. Rinderpest prevention primarily functioned as an extension of the colonial police. Despite universal fears of rinderpest's ravages, which devastated a rural economy dependent on animal labor, colonized Koreans exhibited wide-ranging reactions to the heavy-handed methods adopted by imperial officials to fight the disease. Korean responses included outright resistance such as cross-border cattle smuggling, attacking veterinary officials, or protests against livestock travel bans, as well as varying degrees of cooperation. Moving chronologically from before the beginning of formal colonial rule in 1910 until the 1930s, this article strives to explain how a modern veterinary regime was implemented and negotiated in the northern colonial Korean borderland. Such a view is essential for understanding not only Korea's colonial past but also Korean responses to infectious disease \"invasions\" in the present day.","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":"48877493","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":"Romanticism Strait: Coloniality and Liminality in Im Hwa's Maritime Poetry","authors":"K. Smith","doi":"10.1215/07311613-10213169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-10213169","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article examines the colonial-era poet and critic Im Hwa's (林和 1908–1953) maritime literary trope of Hyŏnhaet'an (玄海灘), the strait separating the Korean peninsula from the Japanese archipelago, as it encompasses Korea's contradictory peripheral location within the Japanese empire. Im Hwa's repeated invocations of this body of water served as a channel for navigating the escalating pressures of colonial censorship, in which the romanticized, masculinist figure of the valiant \"youth\" (ch'ŏngnyŏn) substituted for the former working-class protagonist from Im's esteemed \"short narrative poems\" (tanp'yŏn sŏsasi) during the heyday of the proletarian literary movement. Further, Im's fixation on the vicissitudes of the seafaring journey across the strait can be said to articulate the precarious position occupied by Korean colonial subjects of the Japanese emperor, neither permitted full assimilation nor capable of enduring perpetual subjugation as second-class citizens. The article concludes by exploring how the liminality of passage across Hyŏnhaet'an exemplifies both the tensions between nationalism and social class in the revised geopolitical contours of Im's anti-colonial, oceanic imagination, what he eloquently referred to as a \"new map of the peninsula\" (pando ŭi sae chido).","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":"44760582","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 Power of the Brush: Epistolary Practices in Chosŏn Korea","authors":"M. Eggert","doi":"10.1215/07311613-9859889","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-9859889","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45162395","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}