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The moon jar is a large-size spherical porcelain vessel, first manufactured in eighteenth-century Korea. Originally used as a storage jar, the moon jar is now a frequently used symbol of Korean history and culture, appearing in various contexts within and outside Korea. I explore how it became a primary icon of Korean identity and analyze the converging factors that have shaped its significance and meanings. The continuous fascination with moon jars mirrors the ongoing search for a definition of Korean national identity, which began when Korea was occupied by Japan in the early twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2003, the dispute over the history of the ancient kingdom of Koguryŏ (37 bce, trad.-668 ce), located in Manchuria and northern Korea, has been one of the hottest issues between China and Korea. The debate seems to have fueled a new nationalistic or Sinocentric historiography of the ancient Chinese northeast. A ninth century BCE poem called “Hanyi” in the Classic of Poetry [Shijing] has been the cause of a far older history dispute. Whereas Chinese scholars have generally understood Han as a Zhou feudal state ruled by a Ji-surnamed scion of the Zhou Dynasty (1045–256 bce), most Korean scholars have linked the polity with Old Chosŏn (n.d.-108 bce), the earliest known state in Korean history. However, by comparing the “Hanyi” with several bronze inscriptions with similar contents, this study seeks to re-read the “Hanyi” from a perspective that transcends the dichotomy of Chinese history versus Korean history. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study focuses on the interdisciplinan moves made by the soda! sciences and historical studies regarding modern and contemporary Korean history. These moves began in earnest from the to analyze the dynamic development process of Korean studies. The periods analyzed as part of this study were marked by two dramatic transitions in academic trends. The first was that of the I 980s to the mid-I 990s, a period in whidi a huge epistemological transition took place in the nationalism and internal development-based paradigm of his- torical studies, as well as in the developmentalism arid modernization paradigm of social sciences. The second transition took place in the late 1 990s, in which cultural approaches to history challenged traditional methods, and new para digfns based on postmoderity postriationalism, and posteolonialism emerged. This study analyzes the academic activities and journals of two organizations tha have continuously played a major min informing the direction of modem and contemporary Korean history since the 980s, namely the Korean Social History Association and the Institute R w Korean Historical Studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines forms of Korean agrarianism for illustrating the diversity in representations of national community under colonial rule. Relationship between colonialism, nationalism and modernity; Effect of capitalism on colonial economy and society; Interaction between tradition and modernity; Bifurcation of Korean nationalism into bourgeois capitalist and communist forms.