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This study explores the source usage of three conservative and two progressive newspapers in Korea over the issue of beef imports from the United States. The purpose of the study is to understand the tendency of newspapers on both sides, which induced much turmoil, including huge demonstrations against the government in the middle of 2008. The results of a quantitative content analysis show that progressive newspapers employed more sources and presented the issue more negatively than conservative newspapers. In particular, progressive papers used more negative information, especially from experts, NGOs, and citizens, while the conservative papers used more positive information. In terms of information credibility and valence, the progressive papers effectively used NGO sources, which are situated in the middle of source credibility order, to present a negative tone. The order of credibility is as follows: experts (most credible), followed by judiciary, administration, parliament, NGOs, commercial businesses, and citizens (least credible). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the last several decades, people around the world have become increasingly interested in Korean economy and society. Along with this demand factor, the supply factor, that is, the eagerness of Korean scholars to actively interact with global academia, has encouraged Korean scholars to write more articles about the Korean economy in English. The combination of these two factors has over the last two to three decades resulted in the growth of English-language papers dealing with Korean subjects. However, the increase in English-language papers examining Korean subjects over the last two decades is largely explained by the overall growth of English-language papers in general, while the ratio of Korean-related subjects among those English-language publications has actually declined. More analyses should be made to understand this pattern. However, if we consider policy measures to improve the situation, it is reasonable first to think about how to enhance the availability or quality of data used for research on Korea. Even without allocating more money, the Korean government can attract scholars to study Korean subjects by making existing government data more available to scholars. Since the government is the largest data holder, a more forward-looking approach by the government can attract more scholars to study Korean subjects and to write more papers in English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the 16th-century Royal Kiln-produced white porcelain in the context of the interrelationship between the royal family as the main consumer and the kiln as the producer. In particular, it structurally explains the changes in white porcelain from the perspective of the increase in demand for white porcelain and the imbalance in supply. The royal family enacted the Sinyu In-kind Taxation Reform in the early 16th century and expanded royal finances based on this. The demand for white porcelain produced at the Royal Kiln also increased through the provisions on appropriation and tax-in-kind hikes of the reform. On the other hand, the Royal Kiln was operated under the governmentrun craftsmanship system and, therefore, had a limited annual budget to spend and a limited number of available artisans. As a result, an imbalance occurred in the supply and demand for Royal Kiln white porcelain. The royal family and the kiln responded to this issue by reflecting on each other's positions. Accordingly, it is assumed that changes were brought about in the quality and inscriptions of white porcelain, and in the way Royal Kiln was operated. This paper is of significance in that it organically understands changes seen in white porcelain created at the Royal Kiln in the 16th century through the relationship between the royal family, the highest ruling class at the time, and the kiln operated under the state-run handicraft system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This paper uses "A Travel to Diamond Mountains" (1930) and its author Jo Aeyeong (1911-2000) to explore gender and modernity, community and individuality, and distinctions between tradition and modern in a literary genre. It starts by juxtaposing Jo and her contemporaries, especially Baek Sinae (1908-1939), to examine the complexities of a woman writer situating herself in the early twentieth century. Noting the contexts and opportunities that affected each woman's path forward, it challenges the usefulness of established stereotypes or slogans such as "New Women" and "Wise Mother Good Wife" in understanding this era. The paper then reads Jo's travelogue alongside other travelogues by women, including those communally written in kasa form. In doing so, it complicates the implicit contrast between tradition and modern and illuminates changes to the "traditional" form of kasa. Along with Jo's "Diamond Mountains," women writers and their writings featured in this paper as a whole embody a moment of adaptation, flourishing, and decline within the evolution of women's literature in Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented to this issue which provides information on three papers on the topics including outcomes of a global network project, relation between individual and community, and social governance.

During the period from the 19th to the mid-20th centuries, colonial Singapore played a central role as an Asian trading hub. From 1965, the Republic of Singapore, as a sovereign nation, attempted to uphold its former colonial position of dominance. The efforts undertaken by the Singaporean elites proved to be highly effective, surpassing even the ideological conflict of the 1960s. This resulted in communist nations like the Soviet Union, China, North Vietnam, and North Korea expressing a desire to establish commercial trade relations with Singapore. In the 1950s and 1960s, North Korea stood out as an Asian nation that had achieved notable industrial advancements. North Korean leaders sought to utilize Singapore as a platform for disseminating its industrial products and economic achievements. The efforts made by North Korean communist leaders can be analyzed through various activities carried out between Singapore and North Korea. In the case of Singapore, its leaders aspired to broaden its trading horizons by establishing connections with socialist nations and adopting the insights gained from North Korean industrialization. Through primary sources of Singapore news articles, North Korean news articles, South Korean diplomatic archives, and CIA archives, this paper focuses on the mutual interactions of Singapore, the trading hub, and North Korea, the industrial estate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the exchange of Ming porcelain between Ming China and Joseon in comparison with those exchanges between Ming and other countries in East Asia in order to bring out similarities and differences and highlight the complexity and dynamics of East Asian cultural exchanges. First, the similarities are that the times when the Ming court bestowed porcelain on other countries were concentrated in the first half of the fifteenth century in most of the Asian region. Within the framework of tribute trade, porcelain with a three-clawed dragon design was found in large quantities. During similar periods of time, Longquan celadon and Jingdezhen blue and white porcelain as well as private kiln porcelain wares increased and had common features. Second, what makes the exchange with Joseon distinctive is the introduction of porcelain overland by Ming envoys whose country of origin was Joseon and the shipment of table ware sets manufactured by Ming imperial kilns. Also, most of the Ming porcelain discovered in Joseon has been Jingdezhen blue and white porcelain which was common with other East Asian countries, but only a few discoveries of Longquan or Zhangzhou wares, nor was there much Kraak ware from Jingdezhen kilns or Southeast Asian celadons. These differences put Joseon in a unique position. This analysis provides an implication that diplomatic interactions and the changes in distribution brought about by the main trading forces should be considered in order to have a deep understanding of porcelain exchange between Ming China and Joseon and throughout East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vietnam's new manufacturing status is driven in part by South Korean investments. This paper examines two groups of expatriate Koreans in Hanoi--skilled/managerial workers and the Korean small-business workers. The high concentration of expatriate workers in Hanoi has given rise to the Korean ethnic enclave of My Dinh, many of whose establishments are owned, managed, and serviced by Koreans. The easy availability of services offered by these businesses enables a culture-based support of Korean expatriates in a new city, and the reproduction of Korean life through consumption. Our paper contributes to the literature on the ethnic economy by identifying the nature of customer support for Korean ethnic enterprises. By highlighting the Korean-owned-and-managed small business character of the urban ethnic economy, we demonstrate the importance of consumption in allowing Korean ways of life to be maintained in a new city. We extend our analysis to Vietnamese consumers of Korean businesses and argue tat such enterprises create new opportunities for the growing Vietnamese middle class to develop new consumption practices in a growing cosmopolitan city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the functionalities and styles of Joseon paintings that were transmitted to Japan by considering them in terms of provenance and as objects with cultural biographies; further, this paper will note trends in Japanese collections regarding these works, particularly paintings on screens. Research on the history of art ownership looks at how artworks assume new cultural contexts through the journey from their place of origin to the final destination, and how new meanings are created through interactions between the different actors as human networks are built. Also, the function and implication of screens as diplomatic gifts will be examined by looking at the Joseon paintings which were reproduced onto screens. Screens were produced by collecting many paintings. Analysis of this method will provide insight into how objects evolve in cultural and materialistic terms. Based on the abundance of materials collected in the past century and the analysis of painting styles of the surviving works, this paper will perform a literature review from various angles and present recommendations regarding the study of Joseon paintings held in Japan. A case analysis will illustrate how works created new functions and meanings as they met various people--viewers, patrons, connoisseurs, and owners--during their journey departing the artist's hand and arriving in a new cultural environment, which will highlight the changes of the cultural and material biographies of Joseon paintings in Japan. In particular, paintings concerning Korean embassies have survived with a relatively clear record of provenance, and many of those works remain intact as they have not moved around within Japan since their arrival from Korea. But some were cut and mounted on silk scrolls and reborn into Japanese-style screens in combination with other paintings and calligraphic works after the occurrence of brush talks or singing events. These variations are attributable to the functionalities and characteristics of screens and influenced the way viewers sensed and appreciated the works. Tracing the changes which the objects underwent offers insight into the process of repurposing Korean paintings in cultural and material terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been sixty years since English-language journals in Korean Studies began to be published in Korea. During this time span, Korean academic circles and journals have undergone various changes, which resulted in the transformation of both the journals and their surrounding environment. With due consideration of these changes, this paper attempts to investigate the significance and agendas of English-language journals in Korean Studies. First, it investigates why Korean intellectuals felt the need to learn English during the modern transitional period by examining the case of Yu Gil-jun. It then examines the initial goals of English-language magazines and journals in Korea. In the early phase, these publications tended to deliver one-way statements, almost sounding like publicity pitches, but they gradually took on the facade of an arena of scholarly discussion and output. The now defunct Pictorial Korea began publication following national liberation to inform the world about Korea by using photographs accompanied by brief texts. Korea Journal, which began publication immediately following the May 16 Coup (1961) for the prospective readership of overseas Koreans as well as foreigners, has transformed itself multiple times over the years and acquired the characteristics of a specialized academic journal. Seoul Journal of Korean Studies, which began publication following the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, initially took the approach of transmitting to the world research outcomes in Korean Studies in Korea. English-language journals published in Korea are expected to play a role in the advancement of Korean scholarship. This is because they can serve as a sphere of symbiosis and debate between Korean Studies inside and outside Korea. It is particularly hoped the journals will contribute to complementing or overcoming the closedness of the disciplinary system of the Korean academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians of post-colonial medicine in South Korea have understood a series of changes in the public health system during the Cold War era as an abrupt shift from a Japanese model to an American one. Challenging this perspective of alleged Americanization, this paper examines the continuity of a colonial medical legacy and its relationship with the newly established Americanstandard public health in the late 1940s and 1950s South Korea. Especially, this paper focuses on the intellectual aspect of public health that has been neglected in the historiography of public health, which to date has been limited to the administrative and institutional aspects of public health. By doing so, this paper aims to show how Japanese colonial medicine and American public health practices actively interacted with each other. Taking as case studies South Korea's doctors who studied public health in the United States with the support of the USAMGIK, this paper analyzes their academic activities on public health. By tracing the process of interaction between colonial medicine and American public health practices, this paper argues that the newly established American public health standards in the post-liberation era was a result of an entanglement between the Japanese colonial legacy and American public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surgical face masks have become commonplace during the COVID-19 pandemic, producing debates on mask practices. This paper explains the semiotic practices of the face mask among Koreans, who accepted the mask early and have simultaneously remained uneasy about it until late 2020. It aims to explain this paradox by discovering various meanings Koreans ascribe to the mask. A content analysis of reader responses to news articles finds that Koreans signify what the mask means for life in various voices (i.e., instrumental meanings) in which they concurrently reveal multiple and contradictory meanings of everyday life (i.e., existential meanings) during the pandemic. Eight themes--beneficence, futility, nuisance, routine, privacy, dominance, collective commitment, and intricacy--constitute what the mask and everyday life mean. This study also finds that contradictions among these meanings are resolved either incidentally by their being simultaneously harbored in one piece of the mask that stays and holds tight in most circumstances or semiotically by certain integrative meanings embracing multiple meanings at once. The study argues that the meanings of the mask reflect meanings of life that are often contradictory and yet held together during the pandemic. It demonstrates that mask sociology serves as a promising humanistic inquiry on how the Maussian totality of everyday life is concretely experienced in the context of the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collective memory of Korea, which has evolved through the shaping of the country's national culture and identity, has deepened Koreans' animosity toward Japan, and undermined reconciliation between Korea and Japan since the end of World War II. This paper analyzes how the collective memory of Japanese colonization of Korea has been constructed since World War II by examining the multiple narratives contained in Arirang, a popular Korean novel by Jo Jeong-rae, which has since the 1990s achieved canonical status on the basis of its nationalist perspective. For this purpose, this paper explores how Japanese colonialism is portrayed in Arirang, the pushback this portrayal has received from professional historians, and the socio-economic context in which the collective memory the novel promotes has been shaped and shared among Koreans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines North Korea's border politics along the inter-Korean border before the Korean War, focusing on the provincial division and the border revisions of Gangwon north of the 38th parallel. It traces how the division of Korea by foreign powers and the provincial boundary modification by the nascent North Korean state shaped northern Gangwons distinct way of becoming a North Korean province. Rather than focusing on certain areas of Gangwon, the present study takes northern Gangwon as a whole, examining how the border revision affected the political relationship between the province's old and new administrative centers, Cheorwon and Wonsan, respectively, and North Korea's capital Pyongyang. This paper advances the notion of borderland, inspired by Etienne Balibars rethinking of the concept of de/territorialization from the peripheral perspective, highlighting the power of bordering practices in maintaining the imposition of homogeneous symbolism upon heterogeneous realities. Through the lens of borderland, this research reveals the historical transformations of northern Gangwon from a remnant of an arbitrary division to a political arena of changing spatial relations and eventually to an abstracted territory not without uncontrollable elements within itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Choe Hangi, a 19th-century Korean scholar, established an original field of scholarship called gihak, or qi-study which goes beyond the boundaries of the Confucian and Neo-Confucian intellectual foundation of that time. In his study, he used as important intellectual resources Western Learning taken from books translated into Chinese by European missionaries who aimed to propagate Christianity in China. The Western scientific knowledge in those books led him to develop a unique paradigm of thought. This paper focuses on the purpose and effect of his adoption of Western scientific knowledge, rather than his perspective or the particulars of the Western science introduced to his study. The proposition that his gihak should be defined as a meta-discourse and universal science is instrumental in order to expound the implications and purpose of his adoption of Western knowledge. This notion will frame Western science as the sub-disciplinary scholarship constituting the details of the universal framework presented in his gihak. Choe perceives the movement and action of qi as the essence of the world. With an eye towards establishing gihak as a universal science, he used his knowledge of Western learning to prove that the movement and action of qi can be used to interpret the nature and purpose of universe and all living things including humans. This paper will explain the characteristics of gihak as universal science, examine the three layers of scope in his study, and a shift in human understanding. Through this, his intention to address the problems of the time, communicate with the world, and pursue peace through the fusion of Eastern and Western knowledge will be demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the hard work, skill, and social capital of female insurance agents and their success in gwonyu gaip (solicitation subscription) sales, which fueled the rapid growth of the insurance industry in South Korea from the 1960s through the 1980s. Such success is even more striking considering the systemic discrimination female agents faced within the industry, even as male agents got away with actual misconduct. This paper argues that female agents' high success in solicitation sales facilitated the economic value of the social network in individual insurance sales, and broke down the negative utility of the social network in the male-centered business world. Persistent gender bias in the insurance industry resulted in the feminization of insurance sales, providing much-needed employment opportunities for women from the 1960s to the 1980s, but at a cost: female agents were unfairly viewed as overbearing and unprofessional, which undercut their credibility and led to client mistrust, policy cancellations, and agent resignations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an overview of the history of queer activism in South Korea, paying special attention to the formation of yeondae (solidarity) and sosuja jeongchi (minority politics) in queer politics since the 1990s. In particular, this paper engages in the ways in which queer activism has aligned and/or conflicted with broader social movements in postauthoritarian South Korea. This paper traces the radical kernel of queerness in practicing solidarity based on anti-capitalist and feminist critiques, bridging a range of forms of social marginality in South Korea. Queer activists have contested heteronormativity in mass protests and critically intervened in the democratic nation-building process of the liberal regimes of Kim Dae-jung (1998--2003), Roh Moo-hyun (2003--2008), and Moon Jae-in (2017--present) presidencies, as well as the Candlelight Protests (2016--2017) against Park Geun-hye. In curating and portraying six historical scenes of queer protests, this paper illuminates queer activist labor to imagine a new futurity based on minority politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to analyze significant changes in family law and their relationship to gender equality, which has emerged as one of several factors contributing to low fertility in Korea from a socio-legal perspective. Fertility changes in Korea can be categorized into two distinct periods. The first period, spanning from 1960 to the late-1990s, saw a rapid decline in the fertility rate from approximately six children per woman to slightly below the replacement level. The second period began around the early 2000s, and is characterized by a further decline in the fertility rate to an extremely low level that continues until recent times. During the first phase of low fertility, several revisions were made to the family law, including major revisions related to hojuje, along with subsequent changes. This paper analyzes the implications of some of these family law revisions, specifically, examining provisions related to son preference and gender discrimination in inheritance and the parent-child relationship in family law and their impact on fertility. Through this analysis, this study aims to establish a connection between the revisions of family law and changes in fertility, ultimately shedding light on the complex relationship between law and society in modern Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The voices of ancestors and other souls play a pivotal role in storytelling, evident in both novels and Shamanistic rituals dedicated to ancestors. In both domains, these voices serve as conduits for conveying wisdom, insights, and messages from an individual's deeper spiritual realm and the realm of the deceased in the "other world." The predominant scholarly perspective distinguishes these narratives primarily based on their context and purpose. This paper aims to explore the shared narrative characteristics, or verisimilitudes, between contemporary novels and musok (Korean shamanism). Employing a comparative approach, this study centers on the communication between inhabitants of "this" and "that world" as the primary narrative device. It defines time and space according to the typology of communication and delves into language and narrative characteristics, with a particular emphasis on the role of the reader-receiver in interpretation. In essence, this study examines how these voices shape storytelling and influence the plot in both novels and rituals. This perspective is substantiated by excerpts from novels and recorded gongsu (oracle) sessions gathered during my previous fieldwork. Among the novels, Hwang Sok-yong's Princess Bari (2015) and Han Malsook's Hymn of the Spirit (1983) will be taken into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the Sinitic literati tradition operate with real metaphor, or only with metonymy? Does Confucianism lack transcendence in the sense of (a set of) ideas that allow a distancing of self from world and society, beyond politically motivated reclusion, or is it entirely bound to the normative power of the factual? As a contribution to tackling these conjoined questions, this article discusses the use of metaphor in two long songs (gasa) by 16th century Korean literati who certainly self-identified as Confucians: Song Sun's "Myeonangjeongga" and Jeong Cheol's "Gwandong byeolgok." Through a study of figurative language in these two works, it is shown that true metaphoricity does take place, but more conspicuously and effectively at the level of extended metaphor than on the level of individual similes; and that a major effect of this metaphoricity is the creation of a sense of transcendence. By emphasizing the important place of the expression of transcendence as a liberating force in both poems, the paper makes an implicit argument concerning the religious dimension of Confucianism that an immanence-transcendence distinction, the code of religious language, is at work in Confucian texts, serving Confucian aims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the way in which South Korean biologists developed their conservationist minds and practices through a long tradition of academic expeditions to mountains that predate the 1960s cooperation with US conservationists. By focusing on mountain expeditions carried out by Korean alpinists and scientists from the late 1920s to early 1960s, this paper illuminates how Korean biologists developed forest and natural monument conservation practices they were able to incorporate into the governmental conservation activities while taking part in the Corean Alpine Club's postwar "academic alpinism" (akademik alpinijeum). I argue that their conservation activities, and specifically their military linkages, could be well understood as a transwar product rather than a Cold War outcome. Through this case study, I suggest that this transwar approach helps both historians of Korean science and Korean environmental historians study their research subject while avoiding the widespread analytical dichotomy of Japanese colonial legacies and Cold War ruptures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the late 1960s, South Korean state engineers from construction agencies promoted large dam-building projects with the notion that their expertise would allow them to carve nature for the benefit of the nation. Hidden under this audacious declaration to manipulate nature was the precarious identitymaking of hydrological engineers from academia who contributed to rationalizing dam construction. This paper shows that the uncertain identity of hydrological engineers resonated with their position in a developing South Korea between the colonial legacy and the Cold War influx of Western knowledge. While working closely with state engineers, academic engineers had the distinct goal of establishing a unique Korean research program, overcoming both colonial river management and the Western methods on which it stood. This paper argues that carving nature ultimately concealed the haphazardness of the national water resources development plan as manifested in the tensions between state and academic engineers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates North Korean patriotism. It seeks to establish whether a state that has overwhelmingly failed to provide basic public goods can nevertheless produce and sustain the devotion and support of some or all of the population--in other words, arouse patriotic sentiment--and if so, on what terms. The paper approaches the topic using a modified version of the International Social Survey Programme's national identity survey, specifically those questions that deal with national pride. Using survey findings and selected follow-up interviews, we examine the presence or absence of patriotic sentiment among more than 650 former residents of North Korea. The paper also takes a comparative approach, comparing North Korean patriotism findings with those from former socialist countries to determine whether any patterns exist. We find evidence that, despite enormous state failures, the North Korean state has managed to generate a sense of patriotism and accomplishment for selected components of its state and society, notably in the cultural sphere (e.g., arts and sports). Data from other former socialist states produce similar findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After its liberation, Korea was divided in half--the South controlled by the American military government and the North by the Soviet Red Army. As rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union intensified on the Korean Peninsula, in October 1947, Pope Pius XII made a groundbreaking decision to send Bishop Patrick James Byrne to Seoul as the first apostolic visitor to Korea. His appointment was regarded as the Vatican's recognition of Korea as an independent nation, even before the formal establishment of the Republic of Korea on August 15, 1948. Thus, the Cold War in Korea came to take on a significant religious dimension. The Cold War in Korea is generally regarded as a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, the Holy See had its own agenda for confronting what it viewed as atheistic communists. In this context, this paper sheds light on Pope Pius XII's papal diplomacy by exploring Bishop Byrne's mission and the relations between the Korean Catholic Church led by Bishop Ro Kinam, the American military government, and the Vatican, in building an independent state in Korea. This paper also examines how anti-communism served as a driving force in the fight against atheistic Marxists and how religious leaders perceived the Cold War in the process of establishing a new state on the Korean Peninsula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In explaining the 2016 candlelight protests that removed Park Geun-hye from the presidency, many commentators in South Korea have emphasized the historical continuity of this event with previous candlelight protests that had different goals and contexts. Commentators have highlighted the uninterrupted commitment of active citizens to democratic progress and claimed that these citizens played the determining role throughout all of the candlelight protests. In addition to this view, this paper argues that there is an important discontinuity in the 2016 protests: ordinary citizens defied the Park government when the government undermined their livelihoods, and this defiance constituted the uniqueness of the 2016 candlelight protests. Specifically, by comparing the life cycle of the 2016 protests with that of the 2008 protests, this paper reveals that ordinary citizens influenced the process of the 2016 event by (1) initiating the preceding small protests, (2) continuously mobilizing livelihood issues and thus delaying the professionalization of the protests, and (3) de-radicalizing the movement. Therefore, the 2016 candlelight protests must be interpreted not only as the culmination of Korea's decades-long democratic movement but also as a successful struggle of precarious people against the growing neoliberal threats to their livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes Hwang Sok-yong's visit to North Korea in 1989 and his associated travelogue to examine the popular view of South Korean society toward North Korea in the 1980s as well as changes in inter-Korean relations. The novelist Hwang became the first South Korean writer to visit the North since the division of Korea. His unauthorized visit to North Korea was a culturally and historically significant event that showed how the new détente created in the 1980s was projected on the Korean Peninsula in a transformative way. Additionally, his travel journal contributed to changing the way South Koreans perceived the cultural signs of North Korea and how they pictured their northern counterpart. Hwang's travelogue warrants serious research in that it brought a new perspective to the discourse on North Korea through the previously unimaginable concept of "visiting North Korea" and laid a foundation upon which the genealogy of the North Korea travelogue could be rewritten after the lengthy hiatus following the establishment of our independent government in 1948. This paper aims to delve into the case of Hwang to illustrate how the South's perception of the border between the two Koreas was being reconstructed based on the politics of encounter and the imagination of actual contact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I will address the question of religion the hwarang group professed and its relationship with Chinese heterodox sects. Particularly, those sects were built around the cult of Candraprabhākumāra, a minor character becoming the center of devotion not unlike that of Maitreya during the post-Han era, specifically during Sui-Tang dynasties. The major concerns of this paper are if Silla and hwarangs may have known about this heterodox figure, and if so, how and when. There will be a tentative of verification of Prof. Pankaj Mohan's thesis in the light of other scholars, in particular Hubert Michael Seiwert, and most importantly Erich Zürcher, who tried first to study the Candraprabhākumāra's cults. There will be an assessment of what we know about the hwarangs and what we know about Candraprabhākumāra that could be more related to them. More specifically, the Shouluo biqiu jing, a text examined by all there three scholars, will be analyzed in philological terms. On this basis and on the historical accounts known to us, new hypotheses will be formulated. The conclusions are that the Shouluo jing and the Candraprabhākumāra's cults were known in Silla though the text was likely written in China as opposed to Pankaj Mohan's hypothesis of its origin in the southern Korean kingdom. The hwarangs likely also knew that, by mediation of Baekje: the neighbor kingdom likely acted as a mediator for this particular form of Maitreya's cult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the ways in which feminist activism has, since 2015, gained new momentum in South Korea in terms of its scope, reach, and range of agendas. Building on existing scholarly discussions of feminist movements and gender politics, I first situate the resurgence of feminism within the broader historical and socio-political context of Korean society, including the diversification of social movements generally in post-authoritarian Korea, women's precarious status, and the rise of misogyny. I then discuss the main characteristics of feminist activism on digital media and their implications, in particular, the broad range of feminist subjects, the extension of sites for and methods of struggle, and the emergence and centering of gendered issues within digital environments. Lastly, I assess the limitations of the term "young young feminist" and the diverse politics and controversies associated with contemporary feminist activism, with a focus on the critiques of raetpem (self-identified 'radical feminists'). The paper concludes with an argument for intersectional and transnational feminism and suggestions for future research into feminist activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the permutations of ethical norms within the “good” mother- figure in Bong Joon-ho’s Mother (2009) in relation to South Korea’s historical relationship with redemption. As a symptom of anxiety that stems from a particularly oppressive modern history of political subordination, civil division, and economic struggle, South Korea has exhibited a pattern of retrospection—repetitions of communal overcoming and remembering— to combat national “failures” and redeem national sovereignty. Similarly, the “good” mother’s condition of possibility is maintained by a recurrent loop of responsibility that obligates not only perpetual selflessness, but also neverending guilt. Considering the “good” mother’s entrenchment in the parameters of nationhood, the film becomes an ideal site to interrogate the formation and viability of her sacrificial and redemptive moral framework. Looking beyond defining maternal identity within the scope of the national and historical, the film offers an opportunity to investigate how, reversely, this “retrospective” identity may also work to outline, or limit, the conditions of her ethical conscience. Bringing to the fore the “good” mother’s affective dependency within guilt and the subsequent moral twists, the paper presents the possibility of breaking from the totalizing nature of her self-sacrifice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focused on Joseon court music in light of cultural history and symbolic aspects. The court music was primarily performed for oryeui, or the five state rituals, and thus it is important to understand it in connection with rituals. Therefore, this paper provided an understanding of court music in cultural history by exploring its symbols and their meanings. This paper classified court music into two--sacrificial and ceremonial ones--and provided details of them. It explained the use and characteristics of royal ensembles and introduced musical pieces played by them as well as dance performers. Moreover, it also described how the performance tradition of the Joseon court music has been transmitted today. The symbols and their meanings of the court music were explored by being divided into several topics. Instead of covering all about them, this paper singled out some major types of court music for this subject, which include as follows: sacrificial rituals and music that signified royal legitimacy and authority; ceremonial music that represented the hierarchical order and friendly relations with neighboring countries; saak, or music bestowed by the king; daesaryeo and music, a symbol of military leadership; the policy of sadaegyorin (served the great and keep good relations with neighbors) and music; state funerals and soundless music; and music as a symbol of a vassal country and wonguak (music for the rite to heaven) as an imperial symbol. These topics will help understand the court music as part of royal culture of Joseon. To promote studies of the Joseon court music and overall traditional Korean music in both domestic and foreign scholarship, it is important to provide information on related historical sources. Thus, this paper presented them in the final chapter. This paper focused on Joseon court music in cultural aspects and thus academic achievements, though having been produced in various areas, were not covered. It is hoped that this paper will help scholars abroad have basic understandings of the Joseon court music and inspire their academic passion for this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the border as an assemblage of surveillance technologies that exert a contentious claim to algorithmic accuracy based on raceembedded biometric data processing. I offer the term surveillance racism--a regime of normalization in which the technical reification of race for the biometric database configures anti-migration and anti-refugee discourses for the well-being of a population or nation. I put forward the border as a biopolitical enclosure in which biometric monitoring through security and risk calculations of threat to the state generates, propagates, and maintains discourses of racism. A discussion of South Korea's Integrated Border Management System uncovers the workings of a biopolitical enclosure that is committed to constructing a claim about the survival of the Korean nation pitted against the peculiar racial category of unhealthy immigrants from non-Western, developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the generalization process of minjujuui (the Korean translation of democracy) to better understand the conceptual history of democracy in modern Korea. We first argue that a proper understanding of democracy's conceptual history in Korea and other non-Western societies must include an analysis of the initial popularization and standardization of the translated term for what once was a foreign word and concept. Unfortunately, this crucial research area has been largely neglected to date. To fill this academic lacuna, our study divides the generalization process of minjujuui into four periods based on the frequency of the term's use in Korean print media and then subjects each period to a thorough quantitative and qualitative analysis. As a result of this complementary approach, we find that in Korea, the generalization of the translated word minjujuui was accompanied by ideologicalization, politicization, and temporalization of the concept of democracy itself. We further argue that because the key factors that drove this generalization process derived from internal and external forces in Korea, the intensity of the three other processes was even greater than in the West where the concept of democracy originated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the eruption and growth of the candlelight rallies that resulted in such a dramatic but peaceful regime change in South Korea during 2016-2017 by focusing on the construction of a political reform agenda. While the rigged and dysfunctional administration led by President Park Geun-hye was undeniably the immediate cause of the massive uprising, this paper suggests that there were two underlying processes that transformed citizen reaction to the eccentric corruption scandal into a broad and fundamental critique of Korean society. Before the eruption of the popular protest, civil society has been actively problematizing the soaring inequalities and a democratic reversal taking place during the reigns of successive conservative governments. Following the ignition of the candlelight rallies, the protests turned into a political arena where diverse imaginings about to-be-restored-democracy were articulated and where addressing socioeconomic inequalities was part of the political reform agenda. Informed by a social movement approach that highlights the interactive process of meaning-construction by movement actors, this paper maintains that it is crucial to uncover the processes through which civil society and political elites articulate issues of inequality to turn them into a central public discourse and a democratic agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges previous K-pop studies on fandom in South Korea to broaden their focus beyond straight-identified fans to include queer fans. Although previous studies have focused on male K-pop stars as the object of heterosexual desire, the phenomenon of "fan cosplay," or "fancos" for short, demonstrates that these male stars also serve as a means for cross-gender identification for female fans. This paper explores K-pop's role as a space for its young female fans to explore gender and sexual identity, as well as its influence on local queer subculture in terms of gendered styling, gendered pairing, and queer terminology. Furthermore, an examination of the historical changes in the popularity of fancos reveals the transformation in the recognition of homosexuality and its backlash in Korea as well as the strategies of the queer subculture to focus on invisibility and in-group differentiation. Therefore, a queer perspective on K-pop studies includes domestic queer fans in the study of K-pop, complicates the heteronormative assumptions of fandom studies, and the relationship between commercial media and desire and sheds light on sexual politics in South Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confucian quiet-sitting (jingzhuo...) or reverent attentiveness (jing ...). Reverent attentiveness aims to cultivate one's morality in daily life through a dynamic and harmonious interaction of quietude (jing ...) and activity (dong ...), which is a clear Confucian characteristic. However, this paper argues that Neo-Confucian meditation could be made even more holistic through a method of meditation that incorporates insights from the Yijing ... (Book of Changes). That is, Yijing divination can be understood and used to practice a way of meditation through which one can encounter further aspects of the self that Neo-Confucian meditation does not typically address, for example, the subconscious. If Neo-Confucian reverent attentiveness accommodates Yijing meditation and extends itself to the depths of consciousness, Confucian meditation can become more vibrant by more fully encompassing both rationality and spirituality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korean migration to Malaysia is a relatively new phenomenon that began in the new millennium. By 2019, approximately 20,861 Koreans were residing in Malaysia under various types of visas: work, study, and under the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) program. This paper examines Korean attitudes and adjustment to Malaysian temporality (after accounting for their reasons for emigration) to make causal connections between developmentalist modernity, hypercelerity (extreme speed) and the lack of happiness that drive them to search for better opportunities in the Global South. Coming from a culture of hypercelerity and expected efficiency and immediacy, Koreans have to acclimatize to a culture of slowness. Drawing from a broad span of respondents interviewed between late 2014 to 2021, that includes university students, education migrants (parents), working expatriates, retirees and those on business visas from ages 16 up to their 60s, I argue that Koreans are filled with ambivalence regarding slow time. Such ambivalence is shaped by factors such as age, occupation, circumstance and context, their life course, and extent of openness to cultural difference (cosmopolitanism). This essay focuses on the challenges Koreans face and the strategies they deploy while negotiating the slower temporality of living in the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the background of the construction of New Seonwonjeon Hall in Changdeokgung Palace, the current state of the royal portraits of the Joseon dynasty that are stored there, and the court paintings installed to decorate the space where these eojin (御眞 royal portraits) are installed, such as folding screen paintings of five peaks and folding screen paintings of peonies. New Seonwonjeon Hall was constructed in the rear garden of Changdeokgung Palace in 1921 by recycling elements from royal buildings brought from Gyeongbokgung Palace and Changdeokgung Palace. In the early 1900s the Japanese Government-General of Korea implemented a policy of minimizing the national rites for the royal family of the Joseon dynasty, and the shrine buildings in the respective palaces were demolished. Although this place is part of the dark history of the Japanese occupation period, it is also the last jinjeon (royal portrait hall 眞殿) ever built and enshrines the final 48 portraits of the kings of Joseon. Furthermore, it is a historical site housing relics related to royal portraits. Although most of the royal portraits in this hall were lost during the Korean War, folding screens of five peaks and folding screens of peonies and other royal paintings that decorated the areas around the eojin have survived, shedding light on the way paintings were installed inside a royal portrait hall, the traditional decoration known as "majestic ornamentation," and the state of court paintings from the time after the Academy of Painting 圖畵署 was abolished until the mid-1930s. In conclusion, it is the only surviving royal portrait hall and shows the tradition of royal portrait production and "majestic ornamentation" 莊嚴 from the Joseon dynasty. New Seonwonjeon Hall offers important data on the trends in court painting, which did not cease even under Japanese colonial rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regardless of the geographical separation, from historical-cultural perspectives, Vietnam and Korea had very early exchanges, especially in culture, as both countries mutually absorbed the influence of Chinese civilization. Being influenced by Chinese civilization and bound by tributary relations with Chinese monarchies, Vietnam and Joseon had many mutual understandings in historical and cultural spheres. Besides, the contacts between Vietnamese and Joseon envoys in China were an essential opportunity promoting the cultural exchange and understanding between the two countries. This paper introduces results of research on the contacts--the composition of repartee poems and prose using the same rhyme sequence between Vietnamese and Joseon envoys in China. It can thereby partly explain the cultural closeness and similarities of the two countries and simultaneously set the stages for intensive cooperations between Vietnam and Korea in various fields, including culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to revisit the reception of Du Fu in the literary history of Korea, focusing on its canonicity and textuality. Jibong yuseol, an encyclopedic collection from 17th-century Joseon, Korea, vividly demonstrates how the author Yi Sugwang (1563-1628) attempted to subvert the transcendental positions of literary canons by positioning them in the networks of textual exegesis. Challenging the notion of canon as a perfect and fixed entity, Yi historicized the reception of Du Fu in Joseon and traced how this particular body of text became the most influential part of the canon and could be also deconstructed through interpretative performances. Highlighting the textuality of literary canons, which was considered fluid and flexible, this paper unravels the networks of interpretation drawn from the thousands of references found in Jibong yuseol. Special emphasis of this research also will be placed on the changing "material conditions" of the day, particularly after the Imjin waeran (1592-1598) war between Korea and Japan. The post-war intellectual environment witnessed the influx of a large number of books on Ming and Qing scholarship and prompted a significant shift in the perspective of the Joseon literati. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the cinematic representations of the Gwangju massacre in three films: A Petal (1996), Peppermint Candy (2000), and May 18 (2007). Drawing on Freud's distinction between mourning and melancholia, this paper examines and compares the different ways of commemorating the massacre in these films and the kinds of political and ethical implications produced by their different forms of commemoration. Since the mid-1990s, national mourning for the Gwangju massacre has played a pivotal role in reconciling past antagonisms and legitimizing the hegemony of liberal democracy. As the sacred origin of the pro-democracy movement, the memory of Gwangju has been appropriated to construct a linear, teleological narrative of national development that represents the present as the culmination of nationaldemocratic progress. In exploring in detail how the three films depict the massacre, this paper illuminates how the representations of Gwangju in these films reflect and correspond to the post-traumatic nation-building process in post-authoritarian South Korea, which can be encapsulated as a shift from melancholia to mourning for its traumatic past. In so doing, this paper raises the question of what constitutes an ethico-political way of commemorating historical trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jeju Island reveals exemplary openness to ghost phenomena. In Jeju cosmology, there exists ontological space for ghosts in which the existence of ghosts is tangible. Life on Jeju is permeated with these invisible entities. They are living beings who have their own autonomy. In the Jeju belief system, they are powerful presences and constantly influence the living. Historically, some ghosts have been deified, and are still worshipped as goddesses. There are 270 village shrines called dang on Jeju Island and six of them enshrine haunted maiden deities. The maidens are called halmang who are guardian deities of the six villages. They were seemingly historical figures who were deified after undergoing unbearable harshness in their lives and suffering an unaccepted death. All six maiden myths share commonalities: all are females around the age of puberty, all suffered in their lives, and all died unnatural deaths. The six maidens haunted their villages and were constantly deified to appease their spirits. This paper focuses on Jeju islanders' experiences and understandings of ghost phenomena specifically concentrating on the myths of six village maiden goddesses. Finally, it will reflect on Jeju islanders' mysterious experiences to find meaning through theoretical considerations. [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]

This paper reimagines cosmopolitanism in postwar South Korea by understanding Ri Yeong-hui (1929-2010) and Choe In-hun (1936-2018) as cosmopolitan readers. A cosmopolitan reader refers to an individual who tenaciously intermingles personal history and human history, and national issues and transnational issues in her imagination while reading. Ri, widely known as a dissident intellectual, repeatedly undermined the power of anticommunism and the logic of the Cold War through his lifelong project of reading. In his last published interview, Daehwa (Conversations, 2005), Ri exemplifies a cosmopolitanism of dissent by invoking the transnational nature of national issues in the Third World. The renowned novelist Choe In-hun shares critical characteristics with Ri as a cosmopolitan reader. The narrator of his autobiographical novel Hwadu (The Keyword, 1994) emerges as a novelist whose literary imagination is not bound by national borders. The two figures' performative acts of cosmopolitan reading suggest that cosmopolitanism is an ongoing process in which the reader seeks a revolutionary change in the understanding of self, nation, and literature. By shifting the focus from text to reading, and from ideology to praxis, this paper reconfigurates the very notion of cosmopolitanism by problematizing certain premises that shape its understanding in western academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the distinction between forms of participation for high school and university yeohaksaeng (female students) in the April 19 Revolution. Most yeogosaeng (female high school students) were enrolled in all girl high schools. Yeogosaeng entered scenes of protest via the Hakdo hogukdan (National Student Defense Corps) that were established in every school by the Korean government. The purpose of the Hakdo hogukdan was to regulate and mobilize students into government-sponsored demonstrations. Ironically, this organization actually worked to give high school students political experience. The government sponsored district events for the Hakdo hogukdan from various schools, during which student representatives of the forged personal networks with other students. On the other hand, participation in the April 19 Revolution by yeodaesaeng (female university students) differed from that of yeogosaeng. Ewha and Sookmyung Women's University yeodaesaeng did not participate in the demonstrations. The absence of these yeodaesaeng cast a negative light on the general yeodaesaeng image, and, in turn, consolidated a namhaksaeng (male student)-centric episteme for the April 19 Revolution. However, this paper argues that this androcentric view of the Revolution, and the namhaksaeng-centric networks that were essential to it, effectively marginalized the yeodaesaeng from participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the Seongmisan community in Seoul and the Qinghe Y community in Beijing from an action-theoretical perspective. For this, we distinguish leaders and residents as two actor groups, and consider how they become engaged in neighborhood community reconstruction in terms of push and pull factors. Push refers to "because of" forces such as frustration and anxiety, whereas pull refers to "in order to" forces like ideology and dreams for a better life. The most important finding of this study is that the path-dependent development of community reconstruction in Seoul and Beijing can be explained by the role of leadership and the interaction between leaders and residents. Seongmisan community has been led by a distinctive group from the "386 generation" who are deeply engaged in people-oriented activities. In contrast, the Qinghe Y community has been led by a group of expert sociologists from Tsinghua University. This paper also shows what concrete outcomes have been produced through community reconstruction in each case, and how the leading group and community residents have interacted to bring about change. Based on analysis of these findings, the two cases are compared with respect to their relative strengths and weaknesses. In this paper we also assess the significance of the comparative case study methodology as adopted for this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]