A Study of Ch'usa Kim Chŏng-hŭi: The Introduction of Qing Evidential Learning into Chosŏn Korea and a Reassessment of Practical Learning

ABSTRACT:This article explores the life and scholarship of Kim Chŏng-hŭi so as to examine the historical significance of Qing evidential learning in late Chosŏn Korea. In South Korean scholarship, Ch'usa (Kim's pen name), a prominent scholar and calligrapher of the late Chosŏn period, has drawn immense attention from scholars of different fields. However, Ch'usa studies have been centered around his art and aesthetics, most notably, his calligraphic innovations, while his evidential learning, as well as its historical and intellectual importance, has been understudied. Hence, I will situate Ch'usa's scholarship at the intersection of various cultural and intellectual factors, such as the emergence and development of Qing evidential learning and Han-Song eclecticism in Qing and Chosŏn, the thought of Pak Che-ga and the Pukhak movement and, most importantly, his academic exchanges with Qing literati during and after his participation in a Yŏnhaeng mission in 1809. Furthermore, I will look into Ch'usa's epigraphic studies, of which his two major works Yedang kŭmsŏk kwaallok and Haedong pigo constitute the core. Lastly, I will re-examine the relevance of the concept "practical learning" from the perspective of the nineteenth-century Chosŏn evidential scholars and their literary criticism.