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The privileged position and countrywide leadership of the ruling sa elites in the Chosŏn dynasty (1392-1910) survived wars - the Japanese Invasions (1592-98) and the Manchu Invasions (1627, 1636) - as well as occasional domestic unrest and natural disasters from the late sixteenth century into the seventeenth century. Some elites, as in the case of Cho Sŏnggi (1638-89) and Yi Tansang (1628-69), parlayed the Neo-Confucian jargon-laden articulation of Principle i into an omnipresent metalanguage able to combine the natural (ontology), the knowable (epistemology), and the ethical (morality/norms) in terms of universalism. Specifically, their expositions on the relationship between the universal principle and human mind-and-heart sim helped afford a resource for theoretical flexibility in which to translate the essence of the metalanguage into the maintenance of the Chosŏn establishment under their hegemony and to objectify the changing reality surrounding Chosŏn after the fall of Ming China. Exploring this correspondence between practical need and cerebral creativity in the seventeenth century will enable us to chart a new perspective for the vital reproduction of Neo-Confucian universalism in post-Ming East Asia before the advent of new universalisms from Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Akedun's 1725 album Fengshi tu [Diplomatic Paintings] is an extraordinary example of the diplomatic painting genre popular during the High Qing era (1661-1796) that represents imperial delegations through the commissioners' eye-witness experiences. Created after his four journeys to Chosŏn Korea, this album constructs a narrative in which Akedun carries out the role of an imperial ambassador while it captures ethnographic details of the lived places, curious customs, and courteous peoples of Korea. By rendering an imperial image of the Manchu Qing court, the album commemorates the amelioration of the Qing-Chosŏn relations after they had fraught confrontations during the Manchu's post-conquest period. I argue that the Manchu ambassador Akedun keenly established his persona as an orthodox Confucian scholar in order to justify his position as a civil court-official whose missions were to negotiate for a mutual respect between the two regimes in the process of reaffirming an overarching Qing imperial order. [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]

By examining transformations of Manchu-Chosŏn relations from 1616 to 1643, the author argues that the Manchu regime invoked its new position of the 'Central Kingdom' to construct its politico-cultural identity as 'Zhongguo' before 1644. After it imposed a 'younger brother' relationship on Chosŏn in 1627, the Manchu regime developed a new political discourse regarding Chosŏn, the Ming, and other political entities. In this way, it started claiming centrality in the Chinese world. It also expressed the goal of transforming into Zhongguo and began barbarianizing other countries as a concurrent process of its Sinicization. By further imposing the Zongfan (a.k.a. tributary) relationship on Chosŏn in 1637, the Qing started to replace the Ming's central position in the Chinese world and eliminate its former identity as barbarian. The intensive Qing-Chosŏn communications between 1637 and 1643 strengthened the Qing's identity as Zhongguo and contributed to the rise of the 'Chosŏn Model' for Qing China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Woodblock printed painting albums and manuals from early modern China sparked changes in the way some forms of art were produced in late Chosŏn Korea (1650–1800). Although such art books were firmly rooted in the middle-class public in China, most pictorial and literary evidence tells us that these same books were used exclusively by highly positioned artists and critics in early modern Korea. This disparity of readership points to inequalities in cultural exchange and communication between early modern China and Korea, in which misinformation gave rise to a new source of artistic inspiration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on a neo-Confucian vision that the monarch's mandate relied on listening to his people's grievances, the Chosŏn state (1392–1910) empowered subjects regardless of gender or status to address grievances to the sovereign that had not been rectified in lower courts. Contrary to the preconceived notion that women of the Chosŏn were silent subjects outside their domestic boundary, their petitioning activity shows that women, irrespective of their status, had the same legal capacity as their male counterparts to appeal grievances at local and capital levels. This article focuses on women's petitions and their linguistic practices to show how their petitioning activity complicated the gender dynamics of Confucian society. While the gender hierarchy was reinforced through women's narrative strategy as they appropriated the discourse of domesticity, I posit that women as legal agents were regendering legal identity by constructing a sense of personhood via their petitioning practice. Through articulating their gendered narratives, women struggled to defend not only themselves and their own sense of morality but also their entire family. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay examines the Ru 儒 notion of ming 命, usually translated into English as 'fate,' with an emphasis on the thought of two prominent Ru thinkers, Z hu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200) of Song 宋 China and J eong Yagyong 丁若鏞 (Dasan 茶山, 1762-1836) of Joseon 朝鮮 Korea. Although they were faithful followers of the tradition of Kongzi 孔子and Mengzi 孟子, they held very different views on ming. Z hu Xi saw the realm of fate as determined by contingent movements of psychophysical force, whereas J eong Yagyong believed it to be utterly contingent upon the unfathomable deity, Shangdi 上帝. These differences have important consequences for their conceptions of the good human life as well as the development of their respective cultivation programs. In conclusion, I argue that their differences are directly related to their different stances on the goal of Ru study. Z hu Xi, in confrontation with Buddhism, tried to put all people on the road to becoming a sage, while J eong Yagyong aimed at the actual attainment of sagehood even if only some people could do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how Germany, as a leading country in the international community, perceived and narrated the Japanese colonization of Korea from 1905 to 1945. The first part of this article explores the continuities and changes in German stereotypes towards Korea and their impact on Japanese colonial rule. It analyzes whether and how German- Japanese diplomatic relations influenced German attitudes toward Korea. It can be ascertained that there were virtually no changes in the German stereotypes of Korea since the last days of the Choson Dynasty, because Korean people were merely "objects" in the formation and maintenance of German stereotypes. Such deeply entrenched stereotypes legitimized Japanese colonization of Korea and persisted despite changes in the diplomatic relationship between Germany and Japan. The second part of this article examines the weakness of the German colonial discourse from two approaches. First, German stereotypes of Korea were not buttressed by a self-contained structure, as demonstrated in the representative areas of Japanese modernization such as railroads, agricultural development, education and opening to world trade. Second, German colonial discourse focused only on the material aspects of modernity and completely overlooked the ideological aspect of modernity which the Koreans themselves highly evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The purpose of this research was to explore the relationship between degenerative joint disease (DJD) in the apophyseal joints and intervertebral joints in the vertebral column and assess which vertebral DJD is the more reliable indicator of general activity-related stress. We hypothesized that the more reflecting vertebral DJD for general activity-related stress would appear to show a higher correlation with Schmorl's nodes (SNs). To test this hypothesis, we examined 125 individuals from Eunpyeong Cemetery (mid-15th to early 20th centuries) in Seoul, Korea and analyzed the frequencies of two types of vertebral DJD and their relationship with SNs. Cross-tabulation chi-square tests were used to evaluate the significance of the differences between frequencies of vertebral pathologies. In conclusion, results revealed that the relationship between the two kinds of vertebral DJD appeared differently depending on vertebral region, joint type and sex. The test results of association between the two types of vertebral DJD were statistically significant at the cervical and lumbar regions of males. SNs appeared independently of the pattern of vertebral DJD in nearly all joints with the exception of a correlation between DJD in the intervertebral joints and SNs of the lumbar region in females. As indicated in some studies, this study reconfirmed that the differences in the two kinds of vertebral DJD result from differences in normal vertebral morphology and anatomical function. This study contributes to the overall discussion on the relationship between vertebral DJD and physical activity by showing that the detailed recording and understanding of the two types of vertebral DJD is required before they can be used convincingly in a study on activity-related stress. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [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 common assumption that Buddhism was persecuted throughout the Choson dynasty needs to be re-examined. Buddhists were not killed simply because they were Buddhists. State support for Buddhism was reduced but that resulted in the privatization of Buddhism, not its prohibition. Buddhism became a private matter rather than a state project. Buddhist writings continued to be published. Temples, including temples supported by the royal family, continued to operate. And a small portion of the adult male population lived openly as monks, and occasionally interacted on friendly terms with Confucian scholar-officials. Instead of trying to eliminate those monks, the state instead utilized their labor for defense and handicraft production. Moreover, laypeople were allowed to provide support to monasteries and their inhabitants. The Choson state kept Buddhism under government control but did not engage in the sort of persecution it later engaged in against Catholics. Regulation is not persecution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Late eighteenth-century East Asia witnessed similar events with the Qianlong emperor's (r. 1736–96) literary inquisition in China, King Chŏngjo's (r. 1776–1800) fight against heterodoxy in Korea, and Matsudaira Sadanobu's (1759–1829) Ban on Heterodoxy (Igaku no kin, 1790) in Japan. As is well known, Qianlong sought to destroy anti-Manchu writings, whereas Matsudaira sought to impose order by mandating the neo-Confucian orthodoxy of Zhu Xi (1130–1200) in elite education. Chŏngjo's activities are less understood, but equally significant. His own literary inquisition developed around threats Catholicism posed to the centrality of neo-Confucian orthodoxy, but it encompassed wider concerns over heterodox books imported from Qing China (1644–1911). What Matsudaira desired, Chŏngjo took for granted as defining Chosŏn (1392–1910) Korea's historic claim to guard civilization, and his fears over the threats of barbarism intensified as Catholicism and other forms of heterodoxy arrived via Qing China. This study examines Chŏngjo's response to those threats. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Queen Munjeong (1501-1565) was a substantial power holder who administered national affairs from "behind the bamboo curtain" during the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910). The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between her view on Buddhism and statecraft in sixteenth-century Confucian Joseon. To that end, this study examines Queen Munjeong's Buddhist activities in anti-Buddhist Confucian society, her understanding of Buddhism, and her statecraft in relation to her Buddhist policy. Queen Munjeong did not reject heterodoxy and respected tradition, which served as the logic for her favor of Buddhism. She was a substantial power holder who surpassed royal authority in power and suppressed remonstrators, and her Buddhist activities had strong elements of private character while seeking miraculous efficacy, which eventually resulted in criticism from her contemporary and immediate later generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early Chosŏn dynasty (1392-1910) itinerant performer troupes (sadangp'ae) were comprised of lay monks and female performers, or sadang. This community appears to have been brought into being by the Monk Registration System (toch'ŏpche) that forced monks and temple slaves to leave monasteries and organize themselves into halfmonastic, half-lay communities. Although the Chosŏn elites continued to stigmatize itinerant performers, it was apparent that the broader society depended on the Buddhist beliefs and practices they propagated, and after the Imjin War (1592-1598) the activities of the sadangp'ae became even more widespread. By the sixteenth century, because of the increased propagation of Confucianism, itinerant performers gradually lost their originally strong association with Buddhism, and by the eighteenth century they became professionalized vagrant performers. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, itinerant performers began performing at marketplaces across the country, and sexual services were added to their regular repertoire of singing, dancing, and Buddhist chanting. Although traces of the itinerant performers disappear after the nineteenth century, it is apparent that until that time they played a vital role in satisfying popular cultural demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the key characteristics of Buddhism from the late nineteenth century through the first half of the twentieth century was the rise of lay leadership. East Asian Buddhism was no exception, but the ways, degree, and timing in which this modern phenomenon manifested itself varied, especially in the case of Korean Buddhism, which saw a delayed arrival of lay leadership. This article addresses the question of why lay Buddhism struggled to emerge as a strong force in colonial Korea. A key factor that has been underestimated in scholarship is that Korean monks were socially stigmatized during the Joseon period (1392-1910). The rhetoric of stigmatism was so ubiquitous in journals and newspapers in colonial Korea that it begs a closer analysis of the correlation between the societal perception of monks and its influence on the development of lay Buddhism. This article first examines three interrelated aspects of Korean monastics: (1) the stigmatization imposed on monastics during the Neo-Confucian Joseon dynasty, (2) the persistence of these stigmas in the minds of Koreans, and (3) their internalization among Korean monastics themselves. The article then draws out the impact of these three aspects on the late and limited emergence of lay leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to rapid economic growth in the twentieth century, Korea suffered a long economic decline in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with the failure accelerating from 1850 to 1890. According to 36 different harvest records, rice productivity continuously declined from the early eighteenth to the late nineteenth centuries due to deforestation and increase in natural disasters. Contraction of rural markets after the interruption of trade with Japan also contributed to the decrease in rice production. The third reason for the nineteenth-century crisis was the dissolution of the government-led grain storage and redistribution system. Finally, the ultimate culprit for the crisis could be found in Confucianism with which the Joseon Dynasty was unable to properly understand and respond to the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In premodern Korea, religion provided many of the important tools for legitimizing political authority. Since the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) eventually privileged Confucianism over all other religious traditions, Confucianism supplied the vast majority of the rituals and religious rhetoric that the court used to assert its right to rule during that period. However, when the dynasty was first established at the end of the fourteenth century, the dominance that Confucianism would later display was not yet evident. Instead, in addition to Confucian rituals and rhetoric, official depictions of the founder of the dynasty point to his support of Buddhist and Daoist rituals, and even supernatural phenomena, as well as his reputation for extraordinary military skill, to legitimize his overthrow of the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392). This pluralistic religious environment makes Korea in the fourteenth century look very different from Europe in the same time period, particularly in terms of the ability of the king of Korea to use religious rituals and rhetoric as he saw fit, without the worry of religious leaders trying to control him. This relationship between political and religious power in Korea is a distinctive characteristic of the political culture of premodern Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the history of the villages of lay monks (chaegasung) near North Korea's northernmost border. These communities had been ignored for centuries until they suddenly became the object of scholarly and public attention when Korea fell under Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945). The men of the villages were called "lay monks." They shaved their heads, had wives and children, and had more than one ethnic identity. Despite the sizable number of lay monk villages in this region, their long history and, more importantly, their monastic identity and Buddhist lifestyle, narratives about these communities are almost absent in the historiography of Korean Buddhism. The absence of a written history is ascribed to that historiography's privileged focus on the influential figures, doctrines, texts, and schools that contributed to the protection of the state. Colonial experiences and national divisions have reinforced these elite- and nation-centered narratives about Korean Buddhism to the exclusion of its more pluralistic, local dimensions on the periphery. If the history of these lay monk communities is understood within the context of Choson Buddhism (1392-1910) placed under the Neo-Confucian hegemony of the Choson dynasty, then clearly the existence of these communities is not an anomaly developed independently, but instead is an integral part of Korean Buddhism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does Confucianism account for any part of the perceptions of international politics that Koreans possess? If it does, then how significant has its influence been on the historical process of the conceptual formation of Korean's concept of war and peace? First learned over two millennia ago, Confucianism finally became the sole ruling ideology under the Joseon Dynasty. Ever since, Confucian virtues--moralistic approach, education of men, and family-like international order with the Middle Kingdom at the center, among many--played dominant roles in Korean domestic politics as well as its foreign relations (Sino-Korea relations, almost exclusively). What seemed to last forever in East Asia, however, confronted a massive challenge and the fate of Koreans was not an exception. Korea's bandwagoning strategy within the Confucian world order could not function any more with the advent of the age of imperialism and the subsequent foreign penetrations. The Japanese imperialism collapsed in 1945 and the American form of liberal democracy was transplanted in the new-born Republic of Korea in the beginning of the Cold War. Nevertheless, Koreans maintained the Confucian way of thinking and life that they had inherited over the past several centuries. And Confucianism, though largely implicit, contin-ues to shape the concept of war and peace which again forms Koreans' view of international politics to date. This borne in mind, examining how Confucianism has constructed the Korean norms of international relations undoubtedly merits close attention of both scholars and policymakers in this age of post-Sunshine Policy in search of new foreign policy orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers a look into the daily life of royal women in nineteenth-century Korea through an examination of fertility and childbirth. From the beginning of the Joseon Dynasty, the royal family identified fertility with the state's prosperity. In spite of the emphasis placed on fertility, there was a crisis of declining royal childbirth from the seventeenth century on. As Joseon kings were official figures, royal childbirth was an event of public importance. Though the primary responsibility for childbirth was on the royal women, the process of childbirth therefore became part of the institutional system. Unlike wedding ceremonies and rites of death, the rites of childbirth in Joseon Korea remained unchanged by the Confucian system. Because human beings cannot control all the risks in the process of delivery, divine assistance was invoked for safe delivery, bringing Daoist elements into the rites of childbirth. Nonetheless, Confucian discrimination between a wife and a concubine, an eldest son and the other sons and daughters were projected into the birthing process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article defines Dasan's view on the Seongni debate as "metaphilosophy." Metaphilosophy is often dubbed the "philosophy of philosophy" or "second-order philosophy." The word "meta" has Greek origins, meaning "after" or "beyond." A metaphilosopher stays outside of an ongoing philosophical debate or problem and conducts a second-order review of its nature, purpose, and method, instead of being directly involved in the debate. If a metaphilosopher is defined as such, Dasan, then, can be regarded as the first and foremost metaphilosopher in the Neo-Confucian history of Joseon. Instead of engaging in the intense Seongni debate of his time as a participant, he remained outside the debate and criticized its nature, goals, and methodology from a second-order perspective. As a metaphilosopher, Dasan employed methodological tools, such as linguistic analysis. This article analyzes Dasan's metaphilosophical stance on the Seongni debate and concludes that his metaphilosophical perspective provided a turning point in the history of Joseon Neo-Confucianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the cultural irony of Confucian discipline set against the literary presentation of emotions, from the angle of cultural studies grounded on historical and philosophical approaches, literary text analysis, and gender criticism. First, it aims to explore how funeral oration legitimized the act of weeping for scholar-officials of Joseon and shows how gender was a key element in understanding the way emotional expressiveness was accommodated, represented, and articulated in the Confucian norm. Next, it examines how the level of emotional expressiveness of the funeral oration was closely linked to bloodline, physical and psychological distance, the nature of a relationship, and social context. Finally, it shows that mourning and sadness were deemed the purest and sincerest expression of authentic feeling, as seen through its close association with bodily reactions, and that the funeral oration served as an exhibition of the interaction of human feelings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a case study on Korea's Joseon dynasty, the primary purpose of this article is to uncover the Confucian foundation of public sector welfare in the kingdom era of East Asia's history and to discuss the unlikelihood of realizing Confucian idealism in a pre-industrial country that was experiencing cycles of poverty and natural disasters. To this end, this article answers the following research questions: What are the central philosophical and political ideas of Confucianism? In what ways are the Confucian concepts of wangdao politics and datong society related to public sector welfare? How did Joseon's minbon (minben in Chinese) ideology influence the establishment of its public welfare system? What were the main attributes and programs of Joseon's welfare institutions? Finally, why did Confucian idealism fail to materialize in Joseon? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, experts from various research fields made an interdisciplinary collaboration on well-preserved cultural or human remains discovered in fifteenth- to nineteenth-century Joseon tombs of Korea. The academic information acquired under the interdisciplinary collaboration was significant to researchers in Korea because it is entirely original and not to be commonly found in any library resource for historians. This report is the first of full, detailed descriptions about the research on Joseon tomb, by which the vivid glimpse of Joseon people's lives could be reconstructed, based on the clear archaeological, historical and biological evidences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shin Yun-bok's (1758-?) satire, which pointed out the hedonistic social aspect in the capital of Joseon, constituted a blow to the noblemen's moral authority. We can see in his paintings that in the late Joseon dynasty, the ruling ideology, Confucianism, became sullied and collapsed in its faculties as both mental principles and basis for social order. Shin's genre paintings show by way of ridicule that he rejected the traditional structure of Confucian aesthetics and devalued the fixed relationship between image and text. The two significant characteristics of Shin's style of genre paintings are "one icon representing two codes" and "leverage of ideology and mentalité." Shin's genre paintings are a meaningful landmark because they showed and established a new order of mentalité. The mentalité established in inverse proportion to that situation, however, was also not sound. Even though Shin disclosed the moral collapse by satirically criticizing the hedonistic life of the yangban class in his paintings, the very depictions expressed in Shin's works also captured the social changes and emergences of modernity. This is a significant virtue of Shin's paintings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statural growth in human populations is a sensitive indicator of socio-economic well-being, and improvements in socio-economic status are reflected in secular increases in adult height. In the present study, we investigated the statures of historical Korean societies to show how stature changed over time. Applying Fujii's equation, derived from modern Japanese, to the measurement of femora removed from 15th- to 19th-century Joseon tombs, the average heights of Korean adults during the Joseon dynasty were estimated to be 161.1 ± 5.6 cm and 148.9 ± 4.6 cm for males and females, respectively. Plotting statures for successive historical societies against time revealed that Korean heights remained relatively unchanged through to the end of the 19th century, a pattern that differs from that seen in many Western countries in which stature transiently decreases after the Middle Ages. In contrast, a sharp increase in Korean stature was observed at the beginning of the 20th century, similar to trends seen in other nations (although exact timing varies in different countries). There were no accompanying changes of stature sexual dimorphism. The data reported in this study reflect the unique historical experience of Korea; the relative isolation of Joseon society, the late onset of modernization (at the end of the 19th century), and the later occurrence of industrialization (during the 1960s). Am J Phys Anthropol, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There might have been two ways through which Korea could have maintained independence despite what seemed a fait accompli. First, it could have gotten military assistance by forging an alliance with either Russia or Japan. But setting up an alliance with one side would have created animosity with the other side, thus making a war between Russia and Japan inevitable and colonization of Korea the outcome. The Independence Club stressed the importance of protective neutral status in order for the Great Han Empire to sustain its national sovereignty. The club desired balanced relations between Russia and Japan, but ended up believing that Russia held the greater danger for Korea. Their support of Japan, the United States, and Britain subsequently led to the strengthening of Japanese influence and encouraged a pro-Japanese atmosphere among Koreans. In the process, Japan's influence grew as it ended up taking a mediating role between the Korean government and the Independence Club, opening the way for the Japanese colonization of Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Joseon dynasty is recognized as being the most exemplary tributary state to the Ming dynasty of China. In particular, it is considered an ideal member of the tribute system, which is believed to have been established in its most orthodox form during the era of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). However, the historical facts demonstrate that Joseon Korea, though it fully observed the tributary rites, was an exceptional case. The evidence points to the fact that Ming China and most of its tributary states simply intended to maintain the status quo through the formation of superficial tributary relationships, while concealing any conflicts or opposing interests that may have existed. Thus, tributary relations were easily changeable and were based on the economic, cultural, and political benefits they represented. As the logic of the "tribute system" has emerged as a prominent topic of discussion, it has become neces- sary to take a cautious approach when it comes to regarding Joseon as a typi- cal example of this system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the vast influence of 'Chinese culture' on Korea, the Chosŏn dynasty (1392-1910) was a distinct cultural sphere governed by its own internal logic that centred on the aristocracy. Over the past twenty years, the importance of this fact has received emphasis in detailed studies by Deuchler (1992), Palais (1996) and Duncan (2000). The recent works by Hwang, Park and Kim that are the subject of this essay constitute a triptych of studies that further illuminate the implications of social status in Chosŏn and show how South Korea's transformation over the past five decades represents a radical deviation from the defining characteristics of its Confucian past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the eighteenth century, classic revivalism (bokgojuui …) emerged as a scholarly method for East Asian intellectuals in search of a new self-identity after the dynastic shift from Ming to Qing. Amidst this trend of the East Asian intellectual world, the Horak debate that arose among Joseon scholars was a peculiar phenomenon. Its basis was on the Noron's political and scholarly positions founded upon Zhu Xi Confucianism (Jujahak …), which was incompatible with classic revivalism. Noron labeled classic revivalism negatively as classic imitationalism (uigojuui …), and, in that context, the Nak-ron group of the Noron emphasized presentness and universality by arguing the equalness of past and present, the mind-hearts of sages and commoners, and natures of humans and animals. However, the Horak debate and the ideas that it represented began to decline in the nineteenth century in various ways, caused by, for example, Nak-ron's overemphasis on presentness, its assimilation into Ho-ron, and the emergence of classic revivalism in Joseon Korea.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses public memory in Korea and the glorification of Korean general Kim Kyŏngsŏ, who fought in the 1619 Ming-Chosŏn joint war against the Jurchen peoples. It examines the Battle at Sarhū and Kim's surrender to the Jurchen. Other figures explored include Kang Hongnip, the supreme commander of the Chosŏn forces, and Kim Ŭngha, a division commander. The author considers an account of the battle by Chosŏn staff officer Yi Minhwan and notes the role of writer Yi Sihang in preserving Kim's memory. The article also reflects on Kim's importance to the regional identity of Korea's P’yŏngan Province.

The article presents an examination into the causes behind the development of written printing in Korean history, particularly examining the evolution of the Korean alphabet, printing culture, and the socio-political elements of orthographic change. Details are given noting how Korea had developed both printing technology and alphabetical refinement long before they were formally adopted. The social history of the Choson dynasty in relation to concepts of writing and knowledge is analyzed, outlining the parallel evolution of vernacular and written Korean.

Despite their significance for historical demographic research, a major limitation of Chinese genealogies is the relative lack of information on daughters, their husbands, and their descendants, which prevents an examination of how the boundary of family was extended through the marriage network. To fill this "hole" in Chinese genealogies, we use the genealogy of the Andong Kwôn clan, published in 1476, the oldest existing genealogy in Korea. Interestingly, more than 90 percent of those recorded in this Korean genealogy belong to the son-in-law line, revealing the importance of marriage networks for family formation until the late fifteenth century. By looking at the specific families that Andong Kwôn's daughters married into and the occupational titles of their husbands, we explore specific ways in which the family boundary was expanded to include the son-in-law lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines false registration as a method of domestic adoption in South Korea. The article argues that the practice of falsely registering adoptees as natural births in the family registry emerged in response to the highly restrictive adoption laws in South Korea. As adopting agnatic kin for the purpose of family succession was deemed the only legitimate form of adoption, significant hurdles existed for other kinds of adoption in Korea. This article examines the history of domestic adoption in Korea and highlights the legal hurdles to domestic adoption. These restrictive adoption customs first originated during the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910) as a prescription for yangban elite; they were then codified as customary law for all Koreans under Japanese colonial rule (1910–45). The ban on non-agnatic adoption continued in the postcolonial period when it was codified in the new Civil Code of 1960. Multiple legal reforms were attempted since the 1970s to promote domestic adoptions, but change was slow. This article argues that the highly restrictive nature of adoption laws in South Korea produced an adoption regime that existed largely outside of the legal realm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical analogies can help us contextualize new technical developments with social, cultural, and political forces at work. The late Joseon Dynasty period of Korea (1639–1910), a closed economy with detailed written records, provides a rare opportunity to examine a social-ecological system (SES) responding to drivers of change over a long period of time. Based on historical records and reconstructed data, we aim to: (1) characterize how the expansion of human technology, Ondol (traditional underfloor heating system), affected different subsystems and their interactions within the SES over time, (2) examine the role of the government in promoting the technology and regulating its impacts, and (3) summarize the pertinent lessons learned from old Korea for governing a modern-day bioeconomy. Ondol allows various forest biomass to be utilized as household fuel, including fuelwood, forest litter, and grass scraped from forest floor. Continuous biomass harvesting over 250 years to feed Ondol contributed to forest degradation and the forest ecosystem condition trapped in the early successional stage in the Korean Peninsula. The ecological changes were exacerbated by the Pine Policy with a singular focus on reserving Korean red pine (Pinus densiflora Siebold and Zucc.) for government uses. The policy failed to recognize basic needs of the public while countenancing an expansion of Ondol and a cultural preference for heated floors that propagated an increased use of biomass fuel. This case illustrates the importance of recognizing potential technology traps where a human innovation opened opportunities for more resource use. The lessons learned from old Korea show that bioeconomy transitions would require multifaceted governance responses while being cautious about being too closely tied to the dominant national agenda. Environmental history has much to offer for understanding the social and ecological systemic risks of the current technical developments. We call for more historical analogs from different parts of the world to "move forward by looking back". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the painting album "Journey to Kaesǒng" by artist and scholar Kang Se-hwang, focusing on the leaf "Entrance to Yǒngt'ong." Topics include the relation of Chosǒn era painting to Western uses of scale, paintings by artist Chǒng Sǒn, and Kang's views regarding realism in painting. Also addressed are the impact of social and political relations on Kang's paintings, the depictions of waterfalls by Chǒng and Kang, and the relation of cartography to Chosǒn era Korean art. Kang's depiction of depth is addressed.

An introduction is presented that discusses the issue theme of scale in art, noting issue articles on topics such as the album format in 18th century Korean art, medieval Egyptian water jar design, and the roles of miniatures in Chinese funerary art and architecture.