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This article discusses how paper artisans in Chosŏn Korea transformed the once government-controlled paper production into their own prosperous trade, by focusing on their techniques for recycling paper. They called the paper they made that was not in use 'resting paper', and referred to its reuse, which they facilitated, as a process of 'returning'. These recycling techniques were unique even among its East Asian neighbours and induced new rules about paper production, including the careful accounting of 'resting paper' by government officials. This essay thus helps illuminate two things thus far less noted in the Chosŏn transformation of production: First, the prominent role of techniques in Chosŏn's productive revolutions (not best characterized as either 'industrial' nor 'industrious') before the twentieth century; and second, the constant negotiations that these recycling artisans had made with the Chosŏn court and its officials. The essay uses the robust recycled paper products still remaining in museums, and new kinds of documents about 'resting paper' and its constant transformers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applied various scientific analyses to one fragment of paper and three pigments excavated from earthenware found in the Hoeamsa Temple site at Yangju, Korea, which is believed to have been built in the early twelfth century. Radiocarbon dating of the paper fragment suggests a manufacture date between 1460 and 1646 (at a 95% confidence interval). It was estimated to have been used during the early and middle period of the Joseon dynasty (1391–1776), when the Hoeamsa Temple site was rebuilt. In addition, by staining the fiber of the paper fragment with Graff "C" stain, the paper's raw material was identified as paper mulberry through dislocation, cross-marking, and transparent membrane, which are characteristics of the bast fiber. Efforts were made to identify their material properties and manufacturing techniques of the three types of pigments. Color difference analysis was performed by distributing the pigments in large areas to reveal characteristic differences according to the color difference of the pigment. We found that green-type pigments are malachite and atacamite, red-type pigments are hematite based on the element Fe, and white-type pigments are quartz and muscovite based on the elements Si and Al. In addition, as the size distribution of the three types of pigments is wide and has a multi-peak distribution curve, it was concluded that the pigments were used without purification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applied various scientific analyses to one fragment of paper and three pigments excavated from earthenware found in the Hoeamsa Temple site at Yangju, Korea, which is believed to have been built in the early twelfth century. Radiocarbon dating of the paper fragment suggests a manufacture date between 1460 and 1646 (at a 95% confidence interval). It was estimated to have been used during the early and middle period of the Joseon dynasty (1391–1776), when the Hoeamsa Temple site was rebuilt. In addition, by staining the fiber of the paper fragment with Graff "C" stain, the paper's raw material was identified as paper mulberry through dislocation, cross-marking, and transparent membrane, which are characteristics of the bast fiber. Efforts were made to identify their material properties and manufacturing techniques of the three types of pigments. Color difference analysis was performed by distributing the pigments in large areas to reveal characteristic differences according to the color difference of the pigment. We found that green-type pigments are malachite and atacamite, red-type pigments are hematite based on the element Fe, and white-type pigments are quartz and muscovite based on the elements Si and Al. In addition, as the size distribution of the three types of pigments is wide and has a multi-peak distribution curve, it was concluded that the pigments were used without purification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applied various scientific analyses to one fragment of paper and three pigments excavated from earthenware found in the Hoeamsa Temple site at Yangju, Korea, which is believed to have been built in the early twelfth century. Radiocarbon dating of the paper fragment suggests a manufacture date between 1460 and 1646 (at a 95% confidence interval). It was estimated to have been used during the early and middle period of the Joseon dynasty (1391–1776), when the Hoeamsa Temple site was rebuilt. In addition, by staining the fiber of the paper fragment with Graff "C" stain, the paper's raw material was identified as paper mulberry through dislocation, cross-marking, and transparent membrane, which are characteristics of the bast fiber. Efforts were made to identify their material properties and manufacturing techniques of the three types of pigments. Color difference analysis was performed by distributing the pigments in large areas to reveal characteristic differences according to the color difference of the pigment. We found that green-type pigments are malachite and atacamite, red-type pigments are hematite based on the element Fe, and white-type pigments are quartz and muscovite based on the elements Si and Al. In addition, as the size distribution of the three types of pigments is wide and has a multi-peak distribution curve, it was concluded that the pigments were used without purification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Red-crowned white cranes, large migratory birds symbolizing longevity, fidelity, and independence from power across East Asian cultures, came to live in scholar-official households in late Chosŏn. With the residency of this elegant bird in scholarly households around the mid-eighteenth century, a new knowledge practice that took serious interest in things like cranes emerged. This paper illuminates the roles of these highly cross-cultured things in late-Chosŏn knowledge transformation, echoing material turns in various disciplines. Necessitating knowledge to properly possess and accompany them, cranes led to a new scholarly attachment to things. It opened up an unprecedented intellectual attitude that valued curiosity, taste, and facts concerning things and emphasized usefulness of that newly obtained thing-knowledge. Curiosity, taste, facts, and the usefulness of knowledge obtained new meanings in other parts of the world that experienced similar transitions in knowledge practice by and towards things. While delineating the roles of cranes specifically in late-Chosŏn's transformation through the imprints that they left in scholarly acts and works, this paper proposes a new way to connect knowledge transformations in different parts of the globe, via these newly migrating things, moving away from the narrative that requires an origin and transfers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Just as we can hardly find references on how traditional I hanji i making has weathered the transformation of South Korea into a hypermodern society during the last century, Lee had to start from scratch to identify artisans who continued handmade papermaking using authentic old methods. However, Lee's engagement in traditional papermaking led her to immerse herself in the exciting versatility of I hanji i and the community of artisan-teachers using I hanji i for various crafts. [Extracted from the article]

This article explores the significance of gift-giving in human relationships, with a particular focus on traditional Korea. It discusses how gift exchanges create value and satisfaction for both parties involved, and examines the principles of gift exchange as outlined by anthropologists Marcel Mauss and Karl Polanyi. The article also explores the practical and symbolic functions of diplomatic gifts in establishing and fortifying international relationships and political order. It provides examples of diplomatic gift exchanges between China and neighboring countries, as well as between European countries and China. The article concludes by mentioning three papers that will further examine the practice of diplomatic gifts in East Asia, with a focus on Korea. [Extracted from the article]

This paper presents the results of a bibliometric analysis undertaken on Joseon gogo yeongu (Joseon Archaeological Research), North Korea's preeminent archaeology journal, providing information on the researchers, institutions, and research topics that have come to form the field of archaeological research in North Korea since the mid-1980s. Deviating from previous analyses of Joseon gogo yeongu, this paper focuses on the authors that contributed to Joseon gogo yeongu, identifying the archaeologists that have been most active in publishing articles. This particular method of establishing the key figures of North Korean archaeology reveals the presence of certain archaeologists whose importance has been overlooked within the South Korean discourse on North Korean archaeology. In addition, by tracing the research topics of these key figures over time, a broad understanding of the field of archaeological research in North Korea can be obtained. Information on institutional affiliations and co-authorships present within Joseon gogo yeongu also provide valuable insights into the workings of North Korean academia. Finally, by visualizing the results of the bibliometric analysis using word clouds and networks, the efficacy of Digital Humanities approaches to large data sets is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We know more about how Joseon people wrote, and the texts they produced, than about how and why they read. Existing scholarship has primarily investigated Korean premodern texts from a linguistic and bibliographical perspective, while comparatively few approaches have centered on the social and cultural aspects of their reading. The present paper offers an understanding of how the practice of reading represented a key component of the ideological and institutional configuration of the state during King Sejong's reign (1418–1450) by analyzing reading activities taking place in the context of the royal court as recorded in the Joseon wangjo sillok (Veritable records of the Joseon Dynasty) and other selected documentary and literary sources, mainly from the Kyujanggak archives. The paper starts by exploring the practice of reading in state rituals, assessing its significance as a public demonstration of royal authority. It then investigates how reading constituted a primary activity performed by the king, the crown prince, and other young male members of the royal family. Finally, it considers how the ruler actively used reading as an instrument of governance, assigning the reading of specific books as a strategy for reinforcing ideological and administrative control in and outside the royal palace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1930s the Japanese Government General of Korea's Society for the Compilation of Korean History commissioned facsimiles of some 21 rare historical sources to accompany the publication of the colossal History of Korea (Chōsenshi 朝鮮史), funnelling select xylographic, typographic, and chirographic products of the defunct Chosŏn dynasty's book ecology through offset lithography and collotype, and on occasion movable type. This article investigates the Society for the Compilation of Korean History's collection and classification of historical materials against the larger backdrop of colonial knowledge production, illuminates the different economic and editorial logics of the new printing technologies used to produce the facsimiles, and examines the products as one example of the significance of facsimiles in the field of history. It suggests that the interplay of traditional print media, dominated by woodblock prints, and the new photomechanical means of reproduction, allowed for the swift reproduction of the unfolded page image and the easy utilization of traditional-style binding, permitting the Society to create purposefully antiquated reproductions with a high degree of fidelity to the original. At the same time, the use of modern materials (paper, string, and covers) and certain features common to traditional Japanese book binding meant that the facsimiles were irrevocably hybrid. These facsimiles ended up in a wide range of research libraries, representing the Korean past to the scholarly community in the Japanese empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fashion industry is one of the sectors most responsible for environmental pollution and waste generation. Zero-waste design either minimises or prevents waste generation by efficient use of resources for sustainable growth with environmental responsibility. This paper reviews traditional clothing, focusing on pants, go (袴), from the Joseon Dynasty, an era that emphasised 'oneness with nature'. It analyses their zero-waste design aspects and formative features and, in order to examine their eco-friendliness and aesthetic value applies these to three fashion designs. Sapok pants, pungcha pants and dan-sokgot were selected as design motifs because of their unique structures, creative construction methods and zero-waste aspects. Results demonstrate that the zero-waste patternmaking and composition methods significantly lowered the fabric waste rate, by 0.6–6%. In addition, new design silhouettes are presented by applying unique structural principles and recombining traditional patterns, and these offer highly effective and creative alternate zero-waste fashion design methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the potentially scandalous truce between the front-line Ming and Japanese commanders in the last days of the sixteenth-century Korea War. Mao Guoke, a Ming officer, was "dressed up" as the younger brother of his senior commander Mao Guoqi and sent to Japan as a hostage. He returned after almost two years (1598–1600) expecting to be received as a hero but was dismissed as more of a "self-made hero." This was because the Ming court preferred the "correct" version of the war: that it was ended not by negotiation but by the military victory of the Ming and Chosŏn Korea. Mao Guoke's odyssey is an illuminating case of the interflow and mixture of information, true and false, amid the fog of war. The case also highlights the unique pattern of war and diplomacy in premodern times wherein front-line agents enjoyed and exercised autonomy to an extent that is unthinkable to modern minds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korea's late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Chosŏn Dynasty is marked by evidence of climate change. A distinctive feature of this period was the frequent outbreak of plagues such as cholera, dysentery, and typhoid, especially among the less privileged. There was, consequently, a large-scale discontentment among the poor. In this milieu, some local Confucian scholars, dismayed by the prevailing corruption in the central government, withdrew themselves from government business, focused on studying imported Catholic texts from China, and converted to Catholicism. The emergence of indigenous religious movements also reflected this social reality. This paper explores the correlation among climate anomalies, decline in agricultural productivity, competition for limited common resources, heightened social inequality, and frequent plagues, and how Catholicism, an indigenous religious movement, and Protestant Christianity impacted and were impacted by these processes in Korea's late Chosŏn Dynasty. It also suggests missional implications of this in the post-Covid-19 era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does a reader give a text meaning? In what ways do we understand the operations of encounters between a text and a reader? Focusing on the materiality of reading, this study aims to understand how anonymous readers in late Chosŏn Korea read the poetry of Du Fu, a renowned literary canon from China. To identify the meaning of the texts as constituted by the readers, we look at both the texts and the readers' practices by identifying the readers' prior knowledge of the text that has been embedded and coded in their reading notes, and by analyzing the relationship between the notes and the main body of poetry. Through this analysis, this paper shows that the reading of texts was performed through constant interactions with interpretive traditions and cultural legacies. Through their practices of reading, consequently, they reveal which communities of interpretation they distinctively belong to. To identify the invisible patterns of the exegetical traditions in their reading practices, we particularly apply methods in digital humanities, such as citation network analysis, which is an effective tool to recognize the structure of relationships among the notes, poems, and many other factors of the texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illuminates the cultural performance of Chosŏn (1392–1910) interpreters in the nineteenth century, with a particular focus on interpreters' participation in poetry societies (sisa 詩社). The study aims to explore the cultural status of interpreters by examining the networks they built within poetry societies and to investigate whether engagement in cultural activities contributed to their social mobility in the late nineteenth century. Existing scholarship on the social mobility of the chungin (中人, "middle people") heavily relies on the influence of demographic expansion and position monopoly, at the expense of other indicators reflecting the chungin's social position such as economic, cultural, and political standing. To bridge this research gap, this research uses the cultural life of Chosŏn interpreters as a lens to examine how the chungin interacted with other groups. I use Kang Wi's (姜瑋 1820–1884) Kohwandang such'o (古歡堂收艸, "Collected Works of Kang Wi") as the primary source to extract social connections between the Poetry Society of the Sixth Bridge (Yukkyo sisa 六橋詩社), of which most members were official interpreters and medical doctors living in Hanyang, and the South Poetry Society, which was a poetry community organized by the yangban. Through analyzing clusters and patterns based on the concurrence of the participants, this study concludes that the cultural status of the chungin did not fully align with their categorization in the social hierarchy, and the social gap between the yangban and the chungin did not cease because of cultural exchanges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the birth (起源) and names (語源) of foods such as kimchi is important to understand traditional food culture. kimchi, an ‘add flavored, fermented, pickled, vegetable food’ was initially prepared with the simple purpose of increasing storage capabilities, but later, through a complex process of change, morphological diversification occurred. In addition to the basic name of ‘kimchi’, each variety has its unique name and history. This study was conducted through qualitative research using various research methods, such as oral records and interviews, as well as investigation of data from literature, including ancient literature, modern cookbooks, newspapers, magazines, papers, and videos. The study sought to investigate the context and the meaning of the name Chonggak kimchi. In addition, it is a compilation of how the name spread through the ages and evolved to its current name. The name Chonggak kimchi did not exist during the Joseon Dynasty and Japanese occupation and first appeared in the records in the late 1950s. Nevertheless, the original name of ‘Altarimu kimchi’ evolved and finally became a part of the standard Korean language (標準語) in 1988. In the process of the name spreading and becoming popular, the movie “Chonggak kimchi (1964),” starring Shin, S.I., and Eom, A.R. played a significant role. It was also confirmed that this was a meaningful and valuable case of contentization of traditional food culture, regardless of the intention behind the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abdürreşid İbrahim, a leading Muslim scholar originally from Russia, embarked on his journey to Japan in 1908 to meet with his contacts from Kokuryūkai (Black Dragon Society). On his way back, he spent around ten days in the Korean Empire. İbrahim, who was convinced of the "barbarism" of the West, found quite a few examples in Korea to build upon his theory of "Eastern civility," just as he had found during his time in Japan. He met with a range of people, from porters to the Korean Empire's Interior Minister, and wrote about them in his travelogue titled Âlem-i İslam [The World of Islam]. This paper argues that İbrahim was particularly sympathetic to Koreans because he saw their position in a world of imperial hierarchies as analogous to that of Muslims in the Russian Empire. In Korea, İbrahim's anti-Westernism is coupled with his vision of a Pan-Asian world order led by Imperial Japan. Âlem-i İslam is significant because it is the only account of the Korean Empire's final years written by a Muslim intellectual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In pre-modern Korea, paper was renowned for its white glossy surface and cloth-like strength, becoming an important item in both tributary exchanges and private trade. The unique material of the tak tree and related technical innovations, including toch'im, the repeated beating of just-produced paper that provides sizing and fulling effects, were crucial to this fame. However, the scholar-officials who integrated papermaking into the state production system in order to meet administrative and tributary needs initially made toch'im corvée and then penal labor, thereby dismissing it as simple toil. They were not alone, though, in denigrating a form of manual labor. Historiographies of modern science and technology are generally silent about such work, focusing instead on how we invented the human out of drudgery. However, papermakers in late Chosŏn Korea (the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) chose to identify their artisanship with toch'im and eventually succeeded in securing recognition for that technique as a highly paid specialty. By examining this skilling of toch'im, this paper seeks to change the historiographical silence about toil. It overcomes the archival silence that accompanies manual skills by tracing toch'im's contours through its changing locations and associations in society's changing social and material networks, revealing paper artisans' social techniques, or everyday politics that eventually dignified their laborious technique. Paper artisans' changing relationships with tak barks, tools and facilities, central and local authorities, farmers, merchants, and scholar-officials reveal how such social skilling was made in late Chosŏn Korea, where papermaking became a most successful industry. This tracing of toch'im re-situates creative toil and everyday politics of artisanal hands in the interconnected transformation of social relations, craft, and knowledge practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern law treats land as real estate, subject to rights of ownership. Land must be immobile and clearly partitioned. Pieces of land are described on cadastral maps, with a link to a unique and permanent location. Yet, before the advent of modern law, how did people recognize each piece of land? The Joseon dynasty made numerous maps and conducted various land surveys. However, there was no sense that land should be divided by drawing lines on paper. Beyond a mere object of ownership, land was considered a basis for feeding the people. Hence, conceptions of land existed in by-play with human activity. Boundaries could not be drawn without consideration of local conditions such as the current status of cultivation. This paper will demonstrate Korean indigenous senses of boundary in the 19th century. The Gwangmu Land Register will be compared with land registers and cadastral maps from the Japanese colonial period to reveal key characteristics of late Joseon conceptions of land demarcation. I will show how boundaries shifted between humans and land, among plots, and within Korean society. Moreover, I highlight how new types of land demarcations in turn separated humans from their environment and reconceived land as immovable (real) estate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qiu Jun of Ming China, with the aim of "rendering the Zhuzi jiali both accessible and practicable for ordinary folks," compiled the Jiali yijie. Among the annotations of Jiali in the Ming dynasty, Jiali yijie gained the widest popularity and greatest influence, and was regarded as a new classic, on par with the Jiali itself. In the 16th century, Jiali yijie was also introduced to Joseon Korea, where it was regarded as "an important supplement to the Zhuzi jiali" by Korean scholars, attaining a high level of popularity. This paper draws on 23 versions of the Jiali yijie from the Ming dynasty and 33 from the Qing. Historically, the Jiali yijie was introduced to the Joseon dynasty from China by Kim Anguk in 1518. Through the comparison of these four Joseon print versions and their Chinese counterparts, we are led to the conclusion that it was the Yingtian prefecture's print, dated the twelfth year of the Zhengde Era, that Kim Anguk brought back to Joseon from Ming China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

King Yeongjo, the 21st king of Joseon (18th Century Korea), reigned during the prime years of the dynasty and was its oldest king. Despite his many accomplishments, debate surrounds his reputed display of the symptoms of dementia during the last years of his life. The King showed signs of dementia after 40 years of his regency in 1762 at the age of 69 years, including disorientation, cognitive impairment, amnestic disorder and so on. We examined evidence from the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty and related research papers. Additionally, dementia specialists were asked to undertake a survey to provide objectivity to the literary findings. Prior to his death in 1776, 25 meaningful dementia symptoms were recorded in the Annals across a 10-year period. However, despite indications of dementia, the Joseon dynasty supported him as a king and helped him retain his dignity until the end. This suggests that historical perception changes regarding dementia may also inform current-day attitudes to improve the living standards of patients suffering from dementia and related neuropsychiatric disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The early modern history of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) in East Asia is often depicted as an era of political conflict between the king, the Hun'gu faction, and the Sarim faction. The four major Sahwa (literati purges) reflect its seriousness through which Neo- Confucian scholars were sacrificed by the punishments of execution, exile, or dismissal. The Kimyo Sahwa was the most notorious incident for the Chinese ideology of the Sarim political party. What, then, happened in 1519? What kind of social transformation occurred in relation to the Sungkyunkwan scholars (the national university of the era)? Why did the public office of Daoist Sogyŏksŏ become one of the most controversial issues at the Joseon court? How was the royal shrine of Samch'ŏngjŏn criticised by the leaders of the Sarim faction? This paper explores the politico-religious landscape of early modern Korea through the key features of Jungjong coup (Royal Coup of 1506), Jo Gwangjo (1482-1520) and 'the Literati Purge of 1519', and argues the critical insight that the Daoist rituals and sacred sites (altars for the sky, stars, and gods) were traditionally maintained in the Pŏpcho philosophy of the royal sovereignty even if the culture of Jongmyo (ancestral altars) and Sajik (altars of soil and grain) were legally implemented at the beginning of the Confucian Joseon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the transnational literary interactions in the early modern Sinographic sphere by examining the late Chosŏn writer Yi Tŏngmu's reading of an early Qing text, Liuxi Waizhuan, and its resonance in his compilation of Noeroe Nangnak Sŏ. Reconsidering the unmediated communicability of the Sinographic text, it demonstrates the ways in which Noeroe Nangnak Sŏ decoupled Liuxi Waizhuan from its local conditions of production and circulation and relocalized it to fit Chosŏn Korea's agenda of repositioning itself in the changing Sinocentric order after the downfall of the Ming. Between delocalizing and relocalizing the Sinographic text, the compilation of Noeroe Nangnak Sŏ participated in the constantly shifting meanings of loyalty to the fallen Ming, thereby diversifying the repertoire of the shared civilization in early modern East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For this paper, the authors selected three historical events taken from the Annals of the Choson Dynasty that represent dramatic and tragic stories about parents and their sons for data visualization. By connecting names with entities indicating conductions from history books, they found interesting patterns that tell stories with embedded relations. The visualized images in this paper were mainly code-generated, based on the data of the Annals, with some graphic embellishment added. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the aspect of physical expression in the Korean Bongsan Mask Dance, a composite art form that combines theatre, music, and dance. Compared to other Korean mask plays, movement is highly important in the Bongsan Mask Dance as it contains a variety of technically developed and stylized physical expressions. Considering that dance is so prominent and influential in the development of the story, this drama is referred to as the Bongsan Mask Dance rather than the Bongsan Mask Play. This paper focuses on both direct and indirect physical expression--often neglected despite their importance--and this is in contrast to other studies of this work, which have primarily the actors' dialogue. This paper classifies physical expression into three types based on style and form, and into four categories according to function and role. Also, it argues that physical expression in the Bongsan Mask Dance functions not only as a supportive but also an independent medium that develops the story, contributes to the overall coherence of the artistic work, and communicates critical ideologies and themes differently from speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the anthropometric history of pre-modern Korea drawing from military rosters of the Chosŏn Dynasty (1392–1910). We use height collected from up to 4,256 male recruits measured from the sixteenth to early eighteenth century. As previous research did not address the conversion of recorded height measured in local Korean units (ch’ŏk) into common centimeters in a convincing fashion, this paper pays special attention to this problem by providing evidence that one specific local measure, called chuch’ŏk, was used throughout the entire period. Using our new conversion method and focusing on 2,596 men who reached their terminal height, we show that during the observed period, mean final height of premodern Koreans was about 166 cm, which indicates that they enjoyed the same biological living standards as Europeans at that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the seventeenth-century discourses between the West and the Orient regarding Hamel and Joseon illustrate an antinomy whereby what is regarded as ‘true’ in one society can be defined as ‘false’ in another. Hamel who assumed that the West was superior to Joseon, encountered the antinomy in which their superior self-identity was not supported in Joseon society. However, in their Western discourse, Hamel disparaged Joseon’s people and casted them in the image of the Other who is inferior. On the other hand, Joseon considered itself as a culturally superior ‘little China’ and formed a dichotomous hierarchy with Hamel. This superior stature of Joseon was however shattered when dealing with Great Qing and Japan. In sum, the seventeenth-century discourses between the West and the Orient fall into an antinomy in which the same incident can be either true or false depending on who takes the position of the subject in the discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Koryŏ, Korea's middle kingdom in that it is lodged between Silla and Chosŏn, is the least studied era of Korea's history. And yet it offers intriguing insights into Korea's long tradition as the Koryŏ state participated actively in international events while at the same time building internal institutions in response to its own unique experiences. The collection of papers that follows introduces both these international and domestic themes, providing a nuanced understanding of both Koryŏ and Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to make sense of Yi Gyu-bo's (1168-1241) seemingly religious and apolitical text, "Munjomul" (Questions to the Creator), as a political text, and to suggest its vision as a possible prelude to the Goiyeo (918-1392)-Joseon (1392-1910) transition. If Neo-Confucianism articulates a political vision for the Joseon dynasty, one can construe that political vision as an answer to the previous dynasty's long-lasting questions about the relation of the self and politics as the dominant political thought loses ground. To the extent that "Munjomul" shows the weakening state of the ideological foundation of Goryeo, it can be interpreted as the embodiment of the problem, the answer to which was statecraft thought and Neo-Confucianism in early Joseon. This paper sees that Yi Gyu-bo disconnected the link between politics and the power of the God, and foregrounded the issues of the self while Neo-Confucianism forged the link between the self and politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses an extremely favorable portrayal by an envoy of Joseon Korea, Jeong Du-won, of the Portuguese Jesuit Joao Rodrigues, whom Jeong met in the course of his tributary mission to Ming China in 1630-1631. In his subsequent report to the Joseon king, Jeong portrayed Rodrigues as a benign gift-giver, while portraying himself as a passive recipient of Western gifts. Jeongs characterization of the Jesuit and his gifts has provided modern historians with an important case to illustrate their Eurocentric account of Western Learning in Korea, an account in which the Koreans played simply the passive role of recipient of European culture. While questioning this Eurocentric account, I shall situate Jeongs portrayal of the Jesuit in its political contexts-- Jeong's China mission and the bureaucratic politics of the Joseon dynasty. The image of Rodrigues as the benign gift-giver was created by Jeong, the Joseon envoy who served as the transmitter of higher culture from China to Korea. In his self-serving rhetorical efforts to legitimize the "barbarian" informant from the West, he managed to legitimize his own achievements within the China mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars have stressed that regional dynamics led to the outbreak of the Musin Rebellion, the largest rebellion in eighteenth-century Korea. Scholars have examined the economic and political situation leading up to the violence and concluded that political marginalization caused Kyŏngsang Province elites (from the Southerner faction) to launch the rebellion. This paper analyses evidence from official sources about rebel motivations, rebel geographical associations and the court view of the causes. Although post-rebellion government statements acknowledge tensions between the court and many Kyŏngsang Province elites, rebel testimony showed no evidence of any anger about discrimination against elites from a single region. There is also inconsistent evidence of regional concerns in the membership of the rebel organization, which was drawn from three southern provinces and mainly concentrated around the capital. My findings challenge the conclusions of regionalist scholars and place the Musin Rebellion in a trajectory of late Chosŏn rebellion that was attempting to redress factional political discrimination and was not caused by regional concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the bridge memorial stones of Chosŏn, considering the intersection between public literature and exile literature. Bridge memorial stones are erected to commemorate stone bridge construction in a community. The entire community—from the local administration to the people—contributed to the bridge construction and the compositon of the epigraphs on bridge memorial stones. The genre developed into a type of public literature, forming a practical style without personal narratives. This paper categorizes the contents of bridge memorial stones into three parts: prose, verse, and name lists, and analyzes the general characteristics and literary style of each part. Furthermore, this paper introduces "The Epigraph of Kwangnigyo" by the exile Sim Yŏlchi (1707–1759?) and compares it with conventional epigraphs of bridge memorial stones in Chosŏn. Although written by an outsider to the Kijang (Gijang) community, it captured the local identity by adopting folklore of the dragon king Kwangniwang and affirmed the leading power of the local people. In addition, the author included an image of himself as marginalized from the community in a fictional story. This unique manuscript presents a new perspective on exile literature as a result of active participation in a community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the iconography of "the Listener" in Buddhist prints that was adopted in Joseon dynasty Sakyamuni Preaching paintings. Regarding change in the Listener iconography from bodhisattva form to monk form, diverse research has been conducted on the Listener's identity and origin. However, existing studies are limited as they fail to consider the circumstances of the time this iconography was first adopted and trends in Joseon Buddhism. As the first Joseon print where the Listener in bodhisattva form appeared was based on a print from the Chinese Ming dynasty, and considering trends in publication of Buddhist prints in China where pictures of the Buddha preaching were used repeatedly in sutras regardless of the contents, this paper argues that the Listener should not be identified with any particular figure and examines the current state and characteristics of Joseon Buddhist paintings where the Listener appears. It also explores the possibility that the Listener's change from bodhisattva form to monk form was driven by monk artists such as Myeongok, who were exposed to diverse iconography as they participated in creating both Buddhist paintings and prints in a situation where monks who had received systematic education gained a new awareness of iconography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The triennial civil service examination was instituted right after the foundation of the Chosŏn state. However, special examinations (pyŏlsi) were held frequently alongside triennial examinations by royal order. The frequency of special examinations gradually increased as the Chosŏn period progressed and by the late fifteenth century special examinations were held even more often than the regular examinations. In this paper, I will trace the occasions for special examinations in early Chosŏn to examine why they were held so frequently. Special examinations began with the royal examination administered directly by the king while more and more occasions were created to hold special examinations. They were held as exhortations to learning, and on the occasion of state rituals and state celebrations, which led to the emergence of the state celebration special examination. The state celebration examinations, having initially taken the form of the royal visitation examination, were conducted separately later in the dynasty. As state celebration examinations emerged, the admission criteria were relaxed in order to attract the greatest possible number of scholars. The fashioning of the special examination alongside the regular triennial examination can be explained by the fact that it became part of the education policy and state celebrations of Chosŏn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intent of this paper is to challenge the notion that Buddhism under the oppressive policies of the Joseon state became isolated and limited mostly to popular religious practices. When we shift our focus away from state polemics and elite ideologies, we can perceive Buddhist cultural activities in which monks were active participants in a larger burgeoning literary culture, if not part of the cultural elite of Joseon society. In the literary realm of the scholar-officials, what we notice are active exchanges between Confucian scholar-officials and Buddhist "poet-monks." This portrays a picture of cultural solidarity wherein Confucian-Buddhist exchanges seem more important than the inter-traditional conflict or separateness. Similarly, Buddhist temples were in fact cultural centers of literary activities that were intimately connected to the lives of the literary elites, including the scholar-officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chang Hon has drawn considerable attention for his academic efforts in the histories of literature, printing culture and education in the late Chosŏn period. This evaluation is substantiated because he compiled and published various books and also produced a sizable amount of his own poetry and prose. In particular, his accomplishments in the history of education are significant because the books he compiled, including Ahui wŏllam (Primer in children's education) and Mongyu p'yŏn (Book to instruct the ignorant) are considered as typical instruction books that represented a new trend of education in the nineteenth century. These books were evaluated highly because these attempts showed the potential for spontaneous modernization efforts in Korean education; however, this paper argues that previous scholarship in the history of education largely made such assessments without closely examining the characteristics of supporting documents. Based on a contextual reading of his works, I conclude that Chang Hon was not recognized as an educator by his contemporaries. Furthermore, his books were not intended as formal textbooks, but as reference books designed to impart miscellaneous knowledge or to assist in poetry composition. Additionally, the study materials he compiled should be understood as part of an interaction with the culture of both previous and contemporary generations. Chang Hon, as a man of the secondary status group cbungin, was a poet who compiled his own instructional works and published them, yet at the same time participated in state publication projects; thus, his works should be seen as his own particular engagement with the culture of his day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to analyze the process by which early Catholicism in Joseon was repressed and persecuted through a primarily legal perspective. In doing so, I will try to lay out exactly how the Joseon government chose to legally handle the problem of Catholicism and seek to show how this legal treatment changed over time and reveal the reasons for this shift in law application. Here I will focus on the period between 1784 and 1801, which spans the time between the first Catholic baptism of a Korean and the major persecution campaign which occurred in 1801. While previous research has partially examined the repression and persecution of early Catholicism from a legal perspective before, this paper seeks to analyze the legal treatment of early Catholicism as a whole and cast light on its historical developments. Importantly, I will refer not only to the specific laws applied against Catholics but also incorporate the royal commands, which could exist separate from the legal code, into my analysis. In doing so, I will try to demonstrate that the importance of the king's judicial agency in treating criminal cases in Joseon was paramount. By the end, I hope to have shown precisely how and why the legal handling of Catholicism grew progressively harsher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines A. G. Frank's views about 15th-19th Korea (Joseon Dynasty) in his Reorient. A. G. Frank recognized that Korea might have played a great role in the international relations of East Asia, but he did not write systematically about it and he did not treat Korea as an independent player in the history of East Asia. I think the greatest limitation to his reinterpretation of East Asia is in that he depends too much on China's and Japan's perspective. In order to overcome Frank's shortcomings regarding the history of Korea, first I examine what Frank recognized about the Joseon dynasty between 1400 and 1800. Next I compare Joseon's development to that of China and Japan between 1400 and 1800. Frank compared Europe and East Asia (mainly China and Japan) from three aspects of quantities (population, production, productivity, and trade), qualities (science and technology), and mechanism (economic and financial institutions). With this research we insist that Joseon should not be dismissed in 15th-19th East Asia. The reasons are as follows. First, Joseon between 1400 and 1800 had developed economically as much as China and Japan. Second, Joseon had played a great role in connecting China and Japan and had a positive influence on the development of Japan. So we need to reappraise Reorient's view about East Asia. Only when role of Joseon can be correctly estimated, the dynamics and diversity of East Asia can be properly understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Confucian private academies or söwön of Choson Korea (1392-1910) enjoy an imputed legacy of having been educational institutions of venerable age, serenely situated in rural locales in which Neo-Confucian metaphysics was studied and transmitted by wise masters. The reality was more dynamic and distinctly grittier: the academies were born in an age of growing political despair in the mid-sixteenth century and ended in wholesale violence as the söwön system was largely destroyed between 1868-1871 by the Taewon'gun. This paper examines the unlikely constellation of events that led to the creation of the first söwön in Choson Korea, the Paegun-dong Academy in 1543 in the remote mountainous county of P'unggi, Kyongsang-do and its subsequent royal chartering in 1550 as Sosu Sôwôn. Chu Sebung (1495-1554) and Yi Hwang (1501-1570) were the pivotal figures in these events, as in separate ways they sought to comport their growing fascination with the social and moral implications of Southern Song learning from the twelfth century with their own trajectories of ambition and frustration as local magistrates. From the outset the söwön were less pristine academies dedicated to immersion in philosophy and more local institutions serving a diverse set of worldly interests in their locales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jeongjo was the last strong king of the Joseon period and the most successful of the latter half of the dynasty. Jeongjo used his extensive Confucian education to propagate a royalist political philosophy through which to combat the minister-centered thought of the aristocracy. After a brief discussion of royal power in Joseon vis-à-vis contemporary China and tracing the history of the "imperial pivot" (hwanggeuk) concept, this paper draws on conceptual metaphor theory and blending theory to examine how King Jeongjo argued for royal power in his preface to the Hwanggeukpyeon (Book of the Imperial Pivot). It explores four primary metaphors embedded in the complex metaphor of the king as the "imperial pivot" and then looks at the metaphor as a double-scope blend that creates a new space from the source domains of central pivot and king in politics. It argues that Jeongjo draws upon four primary metaphors--particularly that of balance--in order to provoke a visceral desire in his ministers for him to use the power of the throne to eliminate divisive factions. The imperial pivot is a blended space that allows Jeongjo to invoke the visceral desire for equilibrium provided by the pivot metaphor while leaving behind its connotation of passivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Numerous Ming Chinese took refuge in Choson Korea during the early seventeenth century. Despite the supposed sinocentrism of Choso's elites, refugees from China were treated as belonging to the category of submitting-foreigner (hyanghwain), a protected but distinctly humble social status that had been used primarily as a tool for settling Japanese and Jurchen from Choson's frontiers. Beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, however, the Choson court considered it incongruous to include Ming Chinese descendants in that category. Chinese lineages were thus distinguished from other submitting-foreigners and reclassified according to the considerably more prestigious category of imperial subjects. This paper explores this change, seeing it as part of a trend in the Qing Empire and indeed in Eurasia as a whole in which identity and subjecthood became increasingly bureaucratized, and loyalties treated as absolute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korean royal court culture was doomed by the fall of the Joseon dynasty at the hands of Japanese imperial forces at the beginning of the twentieth century. After the establishment of Japanese colonial administration in 1910, court traditions mostly disappeared as displaced royal family members and their former attendants grew older and suffered economic hardships. It was only in the 1970s that royal court cuisine began to receive official attention as part of efforts to reconstruct and preserve national cultural heritage. In 1970, the royal cuisine of the Joseon dynasty was designated by the state as the Important Intangible Cultural Property No. 38. Through a detailed case study of Hwang Hye-seong (1920-2006), the second state-designated holder of the cultural property, this paper examines the process by which "royal court cuisine" was identified and redefined within the framework of the Important Intangible Cultural Property system in Korea, and analyzes how the royal cuisine thus reconstructed has come to be established, recognized, and successfully commoditized as a specific brand of haute cuisine in the dietary culture of late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wealthiest guilds of the Choson Dynasty (1392-1910) capital, Seoul, formed part of the government's provisioning system, providing mainly luxury goods for royal palaces, government offices and tribute gifts to China and Japan. The guild merchants were also expected to provide corvée labour to the government on a regular basis, although by the late nineteenth century much of this labour was commuted to cash payments. Using a collection of surviving documents from the guildhall of the Myonjujon (Guild of Domestic Silk Merchants), this paper looks in detail at the burden of corvée labour, particularly during the politically and economically tumultuous years between 1884 and 1894. It finds that the merchants' corvée reflected the close relationship between guilds and government and also the two-sided nature of this relationship for the merchants. Thus, while they received certain protections and privileges from the government, the guild merchants were also particularly vulnerable to official corruption, which found a damaging outlet in the corvée system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chemical characteristics of degraded beeswax in the wax treated volumes of the annals of King Sejong in the Joseon Dynasty of Korea were investigated and compared with a standard beeswax sample. The oxidation index of the artificially thermally aged beeswax was similar to that of the beeswax in the waxed volumes of the annals of King Sejong. The beeswax in the waxed volumes had gradually degraded in molecular weight over about 400 years. Two low molecules free fatty acid (tetradecanoic acid and lauric acid) were detected in the beeswaxes on the Annals of King Sejong and artificially aged beeswax. These fatty acids should be generated from ester compound of the beeswax by oxidative and hydrolytic degradation. Therefore, it can be concluded that the beeswax in the waxed volume of King Sejong should be oxidized and hydrolyzed gradually for a long time progressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mummy studies in Korea are instrumental in reconstructing the health and disease status of pre-modern Joseon peoples using firm scientific evidence. However, this scientific approach to such investigations in Korea is a relatively new discipline which began only within the last decade. Previous studies on Joseon tombs and their contents were performed exclusively by dress historians because most of the artefacts recoverable from Joseon tombs were textiles. In this report, we examine some of the excavation records left by dress historians in order to elucidate the approximate number and preservation status of Korean mummies discovered prior to the advent of their scientific investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at traditional Korean practices of the mounting of paintings, discussing a research project on the subject being carried out at Paris-Sorbonne University, Paris, France and the Hirayama Studio of the British Museum, London, England. It focuses on two 18th-century portrait paintings from the Joseon dynasty period, a portrait of scholar Kang Se-hwang and a portrait of Korean Prime Minister Ch'ae Che-gong, both attributed to artist Yi Myong-gi. Topics include the rarity of older Korean paintings with their original mountings, the use of silk backings, rods, and roller knobs in mountings, and differences between Korean, Japanese, and Chinese mountings.