bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Chinese Diction in Korean Shijo Verse
Authors: McCann David R.
Published: April 2011

Premodern Korean literature comprises vernacular works such as the shijo and kasa verse forms, as well as prose tales, memoirs, diaries, and other materials. It also includes a vast amount of writing in classical Chinese, both poetry and prose, formal and informal. Although these two strands, vernacular Korean and classical Chinese, are generally considered in mutual isolation in studies of Korean literature, they commingle in various ways. The Korean language makes use of a large store of words of Chinese origin. Korean literary works, whether written in the vernacular or in classical Chinese, frequently cite Chinese literary or cultural/historical examples. Given the apparent influence of Chinese upon Korean, how has the Korean identity articulated and sustained itself? This study of Korean shijo verse explores the very permeable boundaries between the two realms to see if—and, if so, how—the areas of transition may mark the outlines of what is Korean in Korean literature.
A Historical Study of Korean Noun Compounds
Authors: Baek Eung-Jin
Published: April 2011

One of the most controversial issues in Korean phonology seems to be the sai-sios phenomenon in compound words. Cook (1987) states that "hundreds and perhaps thousands of pages could have been spared had sai-sios NOT been written in the first place." Sai-sios has been described in terms of t-epenthesis, boundaries, brackets, gemination, strata in lexical phonology, C-slots in CV phonology, empty X-slots, or a laryngeal feature postulated as a denominal adjective morpheme. Most of the phonological analysis of sai-sios is based on data from Modern Korean. This paper attempts to account primarily for consonants inserted in noun compounds in fifteenth-century Korean. I am not concerned with the syntactic functions of sai-sios . I will examine noun compounding as reflected in two publications of the fifteenth century, the Pŏnyŏk Nogŏltae (1510?) and the Nogŏltae Ŏnhae (1670). Following Baek (1991), I assume that an articulatory pause accompanied by a glottal stop occurs between the two members of noun compounds and that sai-sios has provided a convenient means to represent this articulatory pause. I will show that this articulatory pause gives rise to a range of phonetic variations and processes both in fifteenth-century Korean and in Modern Korean, processes such as t-epenthesis, glottalization, gemination, and others.
Generational Differences and Political Development in South Korea
Authors: Dong Wonmo
Published: April 2011

Political development in Korea—especially progress toward pluralistic political institutions—very much depends on the capacity of Korean society to deal with the complex problems of intergenerational differences. This article first outlines the sharp differences in attitudes and behavior between the younger, postwar generation (chŏlmŭn sedae) and the older, prewar generation (kisŏng sedae) ; then examines the contributions and limitations of the political activism of the younger generation, which has been both a primary catalyst for social reform and a primary source of political instability over the past few decades. The conclusion offers tentative prognoses for the remainder of the 1990s.
Vanguards and Violence: A Comparison of the U.S. and Korean Student Movements
Authors: Rhee Foon
Published: April 2011

At first glance, U.S. students during the 1960s and Korean students during the 1980s seem to have little in common. Yet across generations, across cultures, and across political histories, the two student movements share much: in their demographic and sociological origins, in their ambition to transform society, and in their parallels to a model of student movements that emphasizes generational conflict. However, the two student movements diverge in other ways: in levels of violence and repression, in longevity, and in their final goals. The differences are, in the end, more profound than their similarities, but they help explain the place of the Korean movement and hint at its prospects. And since students play such a major role in Korean politics, they say something about the country's future as well.
Electoral Dynamics in South Korea Since 1981
Authors: Thomsen Søren Risbjerg , Kim Hyun-woo
Published: April 2011

The analysis of election results from South Korea presented in this paper is one part of a cross-national study of electoral dynamics in several countries, including the Nordic countries, Britain, Italy, the United States, and Japan. The object of the study is primarily to assess the general applicability of the logit methodology for ecological analysis of election results, formulated by Thomsen (1987). In a "most different systems research design," as recommended by Przeworski and Teune (1970), South Korea was chosen as a supposed extreme case marked by volatile electoral behavior during the critical transformation from authoritarian regime to emergent democracy (Billet, 1990; Han, 1989). It is, of course, possible to find more extreme cases in third world countries, but one advantage with the case of Korea is that direct election fraud in counting the votes has been a minor problem in recent elections (C. Park, 1988a, p. 64). The general approach in the analysis is to identify possible causes of the electoral dynamics at four different levels: the national, the regional, the local district, and the individual levels. While actual election results are well suited for the study of electoral dynamics on the first three levels, the estimation of individual voting behavior by the method of ecological inference is more controversial. However, in a country like South Korea, where survey results on individual voter mobility is either not available or of questionable validity, we believe that ecological estimates of voter mobility can provide important clues concerning the possible motives of the individual voters. 1
The Cultural Dimension and Context of North Korean Communism
Authors: Young Whan Kihl
Published: April 2011

A newer perspective is needed in studying North Korea's brand of communism that takes note of parallels between the traditional cultural legacies and the ideological rhetoric of chuch'e socialism. In the process of adapting to the cultural context of North Korea, Marxist-Leninist ideology has evolved into an intensely nationalist ideology unique to North Korea. Although Confucianism and Buddhism, as well as Christianity and shamanism, have officially been banned as unscientific superstitions, their cultural legacies linger on.
Enlightenment Period Fiction and the Formation of a Writer Class
Authors: Youngmin Kwŏn
Published: April 2011

During the Chosŏn era, writers of literature seem not to have made a living of their avocation. It was only during the Enlightenment Period that novel-writing became a profession and a class of novelists arose. This study briefly examines the new social and economic circumstances that allowed such a class to come into being and characterizes the initial evolution of this new class.
The Political Economy in Microcosm: The Korean National Livestock Cooperatives Federation
Authors: Steinberg David I.
Published: April 2011

The National Livestock Cooperatives Federation (NLCF) illustrates in microcosm tensions in formulating internal and external policy in Korea. Formed in 1981 as an offshoot of the state-sponsored agricultural cooperatives, it became independent of government in 1987 as a wave of pluralism swept Korea. Although initially formed to implement state policy and still subsidized by the state, it gradually acquired an agenda of its own and began to compete for control of assets at the local level. Even as the importance of the agricultural sector declined in the national economy, the influence of the livestock subsector rose as meat consumption rose. Its leadership now publicly opposes government policies on import liberalization.
Texts as Contracts in the Political Economy of Korea, 1896-1926
Authors: McCann David R.
Published: April 2011

This study explores a process of negotiated political and economic dispossession in Korea from the late 1890s, when ideas of modernization first began to invoke an implicit relationship with the West, to the 1919 Declaration of Korean Independence. It examines the middle stages of the political dispossession, a process that eventually framed the discourse characteristic of the poems of Manhae Han Yong-un, Sowŏl Kim Chŏng-shik, and other Korean writers of the 1920s—poems in which little or nothing is ever stated about the actual conditions of life in Korea at the time, and in which the addressee is characteristically a person who is loved but absent.
Monks, Medicine, and Miracles: Health and Healing in the History of Korean Buddhism
Authors: Baker Don
Published: April 2011

Throughout Korean history, religion has gained much of its appeal from the sense of control and the modicum of hope that it has been able to provide the afflicted. In early Korea, before Koryŏ times, any religion had to show that healing was one of its powers if it wished to be taken seriously as a religion. Early Korean, Chinese, and Japanese sources indicate that the role of monks in fighting illness and death were a factor in the spread of Buddhism throughout the Korean peninsula.
Confucianism in the Late Koryŏ and Early Chosŏn
Authors: Duncan John
Published: April 2011

One cause of confusion over the nature of early Chosŏn intellectual history has been the practice of evaluating the thought of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Korean scholar-officials from the standpoint of the Zhu Xi orthodoxy of mid and late Chosŏn. This study reevaluates the ideas and policies of the prime architects of the new dynasty, men like Cho Chun and Chŏng To-jŏn, in the context of Koryŏ intellectual traditions and the Yuan-dynasty Neo-Confucianism that was introduced into Korea in the late thirteenth century.
The Role and Dynamics of Nongovernmental Actors in Contemporary Korea
Authors: Bleiker Roland , Bond Doug , Lee Myung-Soo
Published: April 2011

This study extends and refines earlier hypotheses about the constructive potential of influences "from below" on questions of democratization and unification in Korea. It carefully distinguishes "direct action" from other forms of political action and suggests that nonviolent direct action, fomented in the discourse of civil society, offers greater potential for constructive change than does "routine" political action, which operates within a more circumscribed institutional framework and yields more predictable and more limited results.
The Two-Stage Transitional Period Between Medieval and Modern Literature
Authors: Cho Dong-il
Published: April 2011

Some scholars insist that modern Korean literature began when Western literature was introduced after the Kabo Reforms of 1894. Others see its indigenous beginnings in late Chosŏn times, from about the eighteenth century. This work sees some validity in both views. It identifies two stages in a period of transition that began as early as the seventeenth century. During the first stage, lasting until 1860, traditional literati writing in classical Chinese began to show a critical awareness of then-current social conditions, even while others writing in vernacular Korean continued to depict traditional Chinese settings and Confucian morals. Even the p'ansori novels are moralistic, in spite of their insistence on liberation from social constraints. After the first Western impact about 1860, writers of shinsosŏl [the new novel] began to stress themes of enlightenment and national revitalization, even though an undercurrent of conservative fatalism flows beneath the surface. By the beginning of the modern period in 1919, medieval themes of moral imperative had yielded to modern themes of confrontation between the self and the world.
Local and Regional Council Elections in 1991: Features and Political Implications
Authors: Sae Wook Chung
Published: April 2011

South Korean voters cast ballots on 26 March 1991 to elect 4,304 representatives to local councils at the city, county, and urban-ward level. They voted again on 20 June to elect 866 representatives to regional councils at the metropolitan and provincial level. These local and regional elections, the first in 30 years, herald the revival of a system of autonomous self-government and mark an important milestone on the road to democracy in South Korea. This study examines the voting behavior and election results in order to gain a better picture of the electoral culture and concludes with a few recommendations for the future development of local democracy in South Korea.
Enlightenment Period Newspapers and Fiction
Authors: Suh Chung-Woo , Fulton Bruce
Published: April 2011

This study examines journalism's decisive contribution to the emergence and development of fiction during the Enlightenment Period in Korea. It finds that, although fiction existed, fiction writers did not exist as a class. Instead, reporters composed fiction in order to promote enlightenment and modernization, and newspapers incorporated fiction into journalism in order to promote sales. Early fiction thus functioned as a form of journalism.
Lexical Tones in Korean
Authors: Park Sayhyon
Published: April 2011

Standard Korean (hereafter, Korean) is in general known to have no contrastive lexical tone system. However, if we closely examine the intonation patterns of the language, we come to suspect that some items carry their underlying tones. The present study examines the tonal behaviors of these items in order to determine whether they really have lexical tones. If they do have lexical tones, I will also attempt to show how they can be represented in the lexicon. 1
Sot'aesan and the Reformation of Korean Buddhism
Authors: Kim Bokin
Published: April 2011

This work analyzes Sot'aesan's ideas for reforming Korean Buddhism, compares his views to those of the more moderate Buddhist reformer Manhae, and examines the issue of whether or not the Won Buddhism established by Sot'aesan can still be considered Buddhism. It focuses on Sot'aesan's creative interpretations of Buddha, dharma, and sanga , concluding that, although Won Buddhist teachings remain essentially Buddhist, the religious community of Won Buddhists departs much more radically from traditional Buddhist norms.
Adjustment of Vowel Length in Korean Speech at Different Speeds
Authors: Lee Sang Oak
Published: April 2011

The main hypothesis in this study is that vowel length plays a key role in speech production and synthesis. In noisy, less-than-ideal situations, vowels are regarded as "unmarked," whereas consonants are comparatively valued as conveyors of important information. However, I argue that the duration of vowels is more important in characterizing speech tempo. Vowel length differs in proportion to tempo. When we change tempo, the length of consonants is not affected very much, while the length of vowels is considerably altered.
Koryŏ Sŏn Buddhism and Korean Literature
Authors: Pihl Marshall R.
Published: April 2011

This study approaches the rise of Sŏn poetry and its contributions to mainstream, secular poetry by looking at the careers and works of five eminent Sŏn monks of the late Koryŏ, whose lives span more than two hundred years of Koryŏ history from just before the 1170 revolt of the military officials until after Mongol domination, which ended in 1351. It begins with the eminent twelfth-century monk Chinul, who is credited with reviving and reforming Sŏn Buddhism, and continues with four other monks who followed the path he blazed: Hyeshim, Ch'ungji, Pou, and Hyegŭn. Not only did these monks have close connections with the Ch'oe family military regime but some also were willing to voice a social conscience. Moreover, in the field of literature, they contributed new forms that served their own Sŏn Buddhist needs while also contributing to mainstream literature in a major way.
Deregulation and Economic Reform in Korea
Authors: Cho Soon
Published: April 2011

In its all-out push for export-led growth, the Korean government increasingly came to rely on direct control of the economy. Among the undesirable legacies of this largely successful effort are inflation, the dominance of large conglomerates, an underdeveloped financial sector, inefficient allocation of resources, and the inevitable corruption that arises from overregulation and the overconcentration of power. Efforts to improve efficiency and competitiveness by simply deregulating the economy are likely to exacerbate rather than correct these structural imbalances. A more comprehensive, longterm reform program is needed.
Sukchong's Triangle: The Politics of Passion
Authors: Park Chan Eung
Published: April 2011

By the latter half of the Chosŏn period, the Korean vernacular written in hangŭl had become a well-established means of descriptive and imaginative expression, even though Chinese written in hanmun continued to be the preferred medium for documenting and authenticating the historical record. This study compares the official and impersonal record in the Sukchong shillok against the more colorful and subjective text of the Inhyŏn wanghu chŏn to flesh out both the politics and the personalities in the dramatic story of a love triangle involving King Sukchong (r. 1674-1720), the noble and virtuous Queen Inhyŏn, and the low-born and passionate Lady Chang.
Elusive Narrators in Hwang Sun-wŏn
Authors: Epstein Stephen J.
Published: April 2011

Hwang Sun-wŏn's elusive narrators force the reader to take an active role in shaping the meaning of his stories. The shifting viewpoint implicitly acknowledges that dogmatic interpretations are untenable. His short stories accommodate not only multiple speakers but, more important, multiple listeners. This tolerance for and interest in a variety of viewpoints is an important reason why Hwang has gained a place for himself among those Korean authors with wide appeal outside his native land.
Centering the Periphery: Manchurian Exile(s) and the North Korean State
Authors: Armstrong Charles K.
Published: April 2011

Kim Il sung and other Manchurian guerrilla veterans who came to dominate North Korean politics after 1945 were profoundly influenced by the experience of their antiJapanese struggle in exile. This influence has shaped the ideology, historiography, and domestic and external policies of the DPRK to the present. At the same time, this exile experience has been given a mythical status in North Korean history, centered on the personality and activities of Kim Il Sung, but reflective of earlier attempts to draw Manchuria into the mainstream of Korean history. The "mythification" of Manchuria has grown steadily over time, and since the early 1970s Kim Jong Il has been closely associated with his father's Manchurian guerrilla struggle, in particular with the image of Mt. Paektu.
Blurred Genders: The Cultural Construction of Male and Female in South Korea
Authors: Hoffman Diane M.
Published: April 2011

In South Korea, gender has been commonly considered a manifestation of an unquestioned dichotomy between male and female domains, reflecting "official" Neo-Confucian views of male and female as inherently separate and unequal statuses. This study argues that we must move away from facile acceptance of male-female relations in contemporary South Korea. Rather, it proposes that there are levels of Korean behavior and cultural psychology in which the oppositions of "official culture" are subverted or otherwise deconstructed, principally by a process of gender identification. This deep psychological and cosmological emphasis on the essential equality and undifferentiated nature of male and female, coexisting with a radically gender-differentiated social structure, is seen as an inverse image of the ways gender is constructed in the United States, where efforts toward equality and nondifferentiation in social structure belie a fundamental psychological emphasis on conflict stemming from perceptions of absolute opposition and difference. It is suggested that we move beyond Western patterns of dichotomous conceptualization that have characterized so many discussions of gender to consider alternative ways of looking at male and female present in indigenous cultural psychologies.
Hodge Podge: American Occupation Policy in Korea, 1945-1948
Authors: Matray James I.
Published: April 2011

Lieutenant General John Reed Hodge was one of the most important people in recent Korean history. He served as the commander of the U.S. military occupation of southern Korea from September 1945 to August 1948, although he was far from being a prominent U.S. Army officer during World War II. His personal and professional background had a direct and negative impact on his implementation of instructions and his dealings with the Korean people and their political leaders. This article provides evidence that President Harry S. Truman's decision to appoint Hodge as occupation commander was a serious mistake. His narrow experience and lesser command responsibilities caused him to make decisions that greatly increased political polarization in the divided country, creating the circumstances that would result in the outbreak of the Korean War.
On the Prehistory of Korean Grammar: Verb Forms
Authors: Martin Samuel E.
Published: April 2011

The modern systems of verb endings found in Korean and Japanese have developed by incorporating certain auxiliary stems and delexicalized nouns, and many of these have etymologies that are shared by both languages. Arguments are presented that the mutually exclusive Middle Korean RETROSPECTIVE, EFFECTIVE (or aorist), and PROCESSIVE aspectual markers are bound auxiliaries attached to the verb stem. Moreover, the important infinitive ending is shown to have properties that indicate that it originated as a similar bound auxiliary. The modern Korean endings -ko, -ki , and -key are explained as complexes built on the effective marker plus other elements. Remarks are also made on the development of other formations in Korean and Japanese. The evidence continues to point to a prehistoric relationship between Korean and Japanese that is more intimate than can be demonstrated between either of those languages and any other language.
Changing Korean Perceptions of Japan on the Eve of Modern Transformation: The Case of Neo-Confucian Yangban Intellectuals
Authors: Chung Chai-sik
Published: April 2011

Before the modern period, Koreans tended to view Japan with a mixture of antipathy toward a ruthless invader and condescension toward a more peripheral member of their China-centered world. As that world began to change on the eve of the modern era, some reform-minded Korean intellectuals began to view Japan in a different light, seeing its heterodox Confucianism and its military culture as strengths rather than as marks of backwardness. By the eve of the colonial period, many looked to Japan as a model of how Koreans could adapt to the modern world without losing their national character.
German Diplomatic Documents on the 1905 Japan-Korea Protectorate Treaty
Authors: Finch Michael
Published: April 2011

This first English translation of recently discovered German diplomatic documents relating to the Japan-Korea protectorate treaty of 17 November 1905 provides not only objective corroboration of the fundamental illegality of the treaty, but also a fresh and vivid perspective on the events and participants at the time.
The Price of Identity: The 1923 Kantō Earthquake and Its Aftermath
Authors: Allen J. Michael
Published: April 2011

In the immediate aftermath of the devastating 1923 Kantō earthquake, hundreds—perhaps thousands—of Korean residents in Japan were massacred. Animosity toward Koreans was fueled by rumors of Korean wrongdoing after the quake. Some non-Koreans were murdered as well, but the details of the incident show that Koreans were the specific targets because of their distinct Korean identity, rather than simply because they were not Japanese. The Japanese colonial occupation of Korea provided the backdrop to this extreme example of the explosion of racial prejudice into violence, based on a history of antagonism. To be a Korean in 1923 Japan was to be not only despised, but also threatened and potentially killed.
The 1932 Asō Coal Strike: Korean-Japanese Solidarity and Conflict
Authors: Smith W. Donald
Published: April 2011

The 20-day-long Korean strike against the Asō coal mines in 1932 was the only sustained strike by a large number of Korean miners in prewar Japan and the largest strike of the year in Chikuhō, Japan's most important coal field. The 400 strikers demonstrated courage and cohesion but won at best a partial victory that left most of them without jobs. This article draws on union documents and a contemporary report by the Kyōchōkai, a semiprivate organization devoted to labor-capital harmony, to explore the background of the strike, the tactics employed by the male strikers and their wives, and the many obstacles they faced in their fight for better wages and working conditions. The author argues that there was little the workers could do to overcome the harsh anti-union environment of prewar Japan or the surpluses in both coal and labor brought on by the Great Depression, but that the strike might have been more successful if rank-and-file Japanese miners had shown even a hint of solidarity. While a Japanese mining union provided organizational support, the failure of even one Japanese miner to join the strike suggests that Japanese working-class racism severely limited the potential for joint Korean-Japanese action.
Bridging the Gap: The Strategic Context of the 1965 Korea-Japan Normalization Treaty
Authors: Cha Victor D.
Published: April 2011

Straightforward realist calculations of political and economic interests would suggest much higher levels of cooperation than have been evidenced between the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Japan. An often-cited example of their puzzling interaction is the June 1965 normalization treaty. While highly beneficial to both countries, this settlement came about only after 14 years of acerbic and seemingly unnecessarily protracted negotiations. Conventional wisdom highlights the historical enmity and psychological barriers that separate Koreans and Japanese as a key explanatory variable for the tortured treaty process as well as the primary impediment to generally greater cooperation in the relationship. However, recently declassified U.S. government documents and new primary source materials shed new light on the importance of broader geostrategic variables in the 1965 settlement. This article contends that the heightened Cold War security environment in East Asia compelled a normalization settlement between Korea and Japan. The primary causal factor in this regard was the United States. Rising threats from China, coupled with burdensome entanglements in Vietnam, prompted the U.S. to place the highest priority on reconciliation between its two key allies in the region. While U.S. pressure for an ROK—Japan settlement had existed since the start of negotiations in 1951, these efforts became particularly pronounced from 1964 and were critical to the treaty's conclusion in 1965. These findings have implications for the study of Korea—Japan relations generally as well as for the application of international relations theory to East Asia.
The Transformation of Historical Perspectives on Postliberation Capitalism
Authors: Suh Yong-Sug
Published: April 2011

Suh Yong-Sug provides a historical review of the discourse on colonial social formations in Korea, including the "colonialist," "nationalist," and dependency perspectives, as well as current extensions arising from postcolonial economic transformations. Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of these models, Suh outlines an alternative model based on the structural capacity of the colonial state to mobilize resources.
Ancient Japan's Korean Connection
Authors: Farris William Wayne
Published: April 2011

This article analyzes relations among the peoples of the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago between A.D. 350 and 700 from an archaeological perspective. Until recently, the international academic community was divided between those who advocated the "horserider theory" and those who argued that the Japanese court (located in the Kinai) controlled the three southern Korean states of Kaya, Paekche, and Shilla between 350 and 562. This work seeks a middle position consistent with all the evidence. Scholars from Japan, South Korea, China, Western Europe, and the United States have shown that the peninsular peoples transmitted a huge volume of materials, technologies, ideas, and institutions to the archipelago. These items included: iron and iron-working techniques, iron weapons and armor, horse trappings, new agricultural tools and practices, stoneware, the household oven, gold and silver metallurgy, stone-fitting methods, silk-weaving, writing, plans for mountain fortifications, the crossbow, Buddhism and its architecture, and methods of statecraft such as the be, kabane , law codes, and ranking. Peoples of the Korean peninsula acted as middlemen, often altering or refining ideas that originated elsewhere. Four mechanisms encouraged the influx: minimal trade, large-scale immigration, some plundering by Japanese troops fighting in Korea, and the foreign policies of states such as Paekche and Koguryŏ. Japanese chieftains anxious to receive technology transfers from the Korean states were obliged to send troops to intervene in the peninsular wars on behalf of the donor government. While this work does not support either extreme interpretation, it underlines the Japanese debt to the peninsular peoples, and points out that the rise of complex states in Japan and Korea was intimately interrelated.
The American Response to the Korean Independence Movement, 1910-1945
Authors: Savage Timothy L.
Published: April 2011

Between 1910 and 1945, the perception of Korea in American eyes shifted from that of a remote nation of little concern, to a perplexing problem of policy, and finally to the earliest testing ground of the Cold War. The one constant was the tendency of the U.S. to subordinate its Korean policy to other foreign policy concerns. Wilson's decision to compromise on Korean self-determination to keep Japan in the League of Nations failed when his own Congress decided not to join. Roosevelt's later attempt to set up a postwar order policed by a coalition of the U.S., Great Britain, China, and the Soviet Union led him to defer to the increasingly ineffective Guomindang on Korean policy, thereby gaining nothing and hampering American efforts to unify the competing Korean factions in the U.S. Truman's decision to discard a key member of the coalition and keep the Soviet Union from dominating Korea backfired, leading to the establishment of a communist government on one half of the peninsula. The desire to contain communism in Korea then led the U.S. to support the dictatorial regime of the one Korean nationalist who was probably the least popular among American policymakers. In each case, the failure to treat Korea as an end in itself led to results quite the opposite of those intended.
The Tsushima Governor and Regulation of Japanese Access to Chosŏn in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
Authors: Robinson Kenneth R.
Published: April 2011

This article suggests that Chosŏn government officials did not strictly adhere to the tributary system model of international relations in their dealings with Japanese in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Officials borrowed from Chinese example and from domestic policy in designing Japanese access control policies that responded flexibly to political conditions in Japan. The munin access permits issued by the Tsushima shugo were perhaps the most important feature of these policies. But treatment of Tsushima and the Tsushima shugo by Korean officials made ambiguous the identities not only of Tsushima and the Tsushima shugo , but also the administrative boundaries of Chosŏn and Japan. These negotiable ambiguities raise questions of how to conceptualize relations between Koreans and Japanese in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The Rise of Western Medicine and Revival of Traditional Medicine in Korea: A Brief History
Authors: Han Gil Soo
Published: April 2011

Hanbang herbal medicine, originally from China but indigenized in Korea, began to lose its significance on the introduction of Western medicine to Korea over a century ago. The trend continued during the Japanese colonial period (1910-5) and the early period of economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s. However, hanbang began to regain its significance as affluence increased during the 1980s. This study attempts to explain this resurgence of hanbang medicine and continuing growth of Western biomedicine by exploring the links between both types of medicine and the rapid industrialization of Korean society.
From Subservience to Autonomy: Kim Wŏnju's "Awakening"
Authors: Kim Yung-Hee
Published: April 2011

Kim Wŏnju ( 1896-1971 ), better known by her pen name, Iryŏp (One Leaf), was one of the most outspoken and controversial feminist writers of modern Korea. This study presents a brief biography of Kim up to the time she became a Buddhist nun in the early 1930s, situating her life in the ideological, literary, cultural, and even political settings of her time. It then critically analyzes the structure, narrative strategies, and ideological implications of Kim's short story "Chagak" (Awakening, 1926), attempting to ascertain the story's place in the context of the time and in the author's development as a feminist writer.
The Story of Ch'ŏyong, a Parable of Literary Negotiation
Authors: McCann David R.
Published: April 2011

The Story of Ch'ŏyong, from the thirteenth-century compilation of myths, legends, histories, and songs known as the Samguk yusa (Remnants of the Three Kingdoms) , has attracted a great deal of attention in Korean scholarly circles. Much of the interest in the story has a nationalist flavor, in the sense that it is drawn to explain the seemingly passive behavior of the story's central character, the son of the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, when he confronts a rather unpleasant scene upon returning to his home in the Shilla capital, Kyŏngju. How can a culture hero such as Ch'ŏyong behave in what seems to be a weak and indecisive way, the scholars ask. Most of the explanations ignore the admittedly obscure female character in the story, the beautiful woman who is Ch'ŏyong's wife. The present article pursues the question of what happens when the identity of the woman is considered a central rather than peripheral element in the story.
Female Employment and Elite Occupations in Korea: The Case of "Her Honor" the Judge
Authors: Lewis Linda S.
Published: April 2011

This article examines the employment patterns of women with law degrees, and the career experiences of those who succeed in entering the legal profession. It reveals that structural factors account for the rising number of female jurists, rather than any apparent changes in gender ideology in Korean society as a whole. Most notably, the government's expansion of the size of the field has benefited women, while at the same time aspects of the profession's structure, such as the gender-blind entrance examination and a seniority-based promotion system, have made the law increasingly attractive to career-oriented women. Further, the concentration of female legal professionals on the bench and their conspicuous absence in prosecutors' offices, suggests that traditional patriarchal attitudes about the proper role of women continue to dominate in the workplace, and that the increasingly equal access of the late 1980s has not necessarily assured equal opportunities for women in the 1990s.
Strong State or Strong Society?: Educational Development in South Korea, 1961-66
Authors: Seth Michael J.
Published: April 2011

South Korea is often portrayed as an authoritarian state that has directed the nation's social and economic development. So well does it fit models of a "strong state" and "developmental state" that there has been a tendency to overlook the importance of broader social forces—what may be termed the "public sphere"—in shaping the course of the nation's development. Yet a close examination of the formulation and implementation of educational policies during the early months of the military government in 1961 and the First Five-Year Development Plan in 1962-66 reveals that the South Korean state failed repeatedly to coordinate educational expansion with developmental needs as a result of opposition from a public eager to gain access to power, privilege, and prestige through higher education.
Making Colonial Policies in Korea: The Factory Law Debate, Peace Preservation Law, and Land Reform Laws in the Interwar Years
Authors: Park Soon Won
Published: April 2011

The conventional view of a powerless colonial Korean labor force oppressed by an authoritative and exploitative Japan has recently come under critical attack by newer studies seeking to reexamine the social dynamics that existed among different colonial groups. This study is in the latter camp, focusing on the Factory Law debate that took place in Korea between the two world wars (1921-1936) to argue that Japanese colonial policies were not always authoritative and arbitrary. Rather, any legislation resulted from a complex decisionmaking process forced by a need to balance the interests of different leaders, shifting policy priorities in Japan, and local pressures.
Playful Reconstruction of Gender in P'ansori Storytelling
Authors: Park Chan E.
Published: April 2011

This article explores how gender shift occurs in p'ansori, especially with a female storyteller: in the style of narration, in the timbre and inflection of the voice, between characters from the story, and between the roles of a narrator and a performer. Understanding the sociohistorical conditions that helped bear and nurture the vocal art of p'ansori is crucial to an understanding of how singers handle the process of cross-gender vocalization, particularly with Korea's strict Neo-Confucian heritage that emphasizes segregation of masculinity and femininity. The role of gender is also examined within the stories of the p'ansori, especially how their portrayal fits with the modern feminist view that women in p'ansori are sexual objects performing before the dominant male audience. Finally, this study discusses the performative identity that women singers of p'ansori have constructed upon the already complex stage gender shaped by male singers of the past era.
Composition Errors as an Index of Korean American Language Student Fluency Levels
Authors: Hahn Kyung-Ja Park
Published: April 2011

This paper attempts to discuss and categorize the types of errors made by Korean American students in an advanced Korean composition class at the University of Hawai'i in order to provide some additional criteria for distinguishing between proficient and less proficient learners of Korean. Current issues in Korean honorifics are also reviewed in order to examine the strategies learners tend to use in composition. The position taken is that proficiency can be defined in terms of both linguistic and communicative competence. It follows then that knowledge of what constitutes this competence becomes crucial, requiring some examination and criticism of existing guidelines for measuring it. Observation, analysis, and discussion of the student data lead to the tentative conclusion that interspeaker familiarity and sensitivity to pragmatic and sociolinguistic variables of Korean appear to be essential in producing smooth and natural Korean-language prose.
The State of North Korean Studies: A Critical Appraisal
Authors: Koh B. C.
Published: April 2011

While it cannot be denied that the current academic literature on North Korea is rapidly growing, current studies in the field can still be defined by a number of weaknesses. This paper argues that six such weaknesses can be found: (1) a paucity of theoretical and comparative studies, (2) an overall lack of methodological rigor, (3) logistical constraints on data, (4) a lamentable shortage of trained specialists, (5) various political constraints and a strong ideological bias, and (6) the generally noncumulative nature of the literature. The concluding section ponders the implications and effects of these points on future research.
The Second Society in North Korea
Authors: Suh Jae Jean
Published: April 2011

Despite the quantity of literature on North Korea currently available, the quality has not been very satisfactory. A major reason for this is that North Korean studies in South Korea have been and continue to be dominated by political scientists, whose research suffers from serious theoretical, ideological, and methodological biases—anticommunist sentiment, the myth of North Korean particularism, the totalitarian assumption, and elitist biases. Studies of North Korea require more potent tools of analysis capable of accounting for the sort of visible and dynamic change likely to accompany that nation's current economic deterioration. This study presents such an alternative approach, drawing on recent interviews with defectors and on content analysis of North Korean novels to build a comparative sociological account that argues there is a widening gap between official state ideals and the realities of daily life in that society. Illuminating those features that conflict with and deviate from the endorsed ideals, it shows how these are not unique to North Korea, but rather general features of socialist states as a whole.
Kim Il Sung's Campaign against the Soviet Faction in Late 1955 and the Birth of Chuch'e
Authors: Lankov Andrei N.
Published: April 2011

In 1955 Kim Il Sung had every reason to feel uneasy about de-Stalinization ideas in the Communist camp. Since Soviet Koreans were the most likely conduit for the new and dangerous trends, in late 1955 Kim launched a preemptive strike against this powerful group. During the winter of 1955-56 many prominent Soviet Koreans suffered humiliating attacks. The entire campaign was rather low profile, but it was of great importance for DPRK history. The term chuch'e was coined in the midst of this campaign. This article uses declassified materials from Soviet archives to give a picture of these important events.
Creating the National Other: Opposing Images of Nationalism in South and North Korean Education
Authors: Hart Dennis
Published: April 2011

This article is a study of how the North and South Korean governments have sponsored differing national identities through their school curricula. Each regime has instructed its people in a specific definition of Korean identity by incorporating a national Other into its national identity. For both governments, national identity has been based upon historical legacies as well as a need to distinguish itself from its rival while following the idiom of it own ideology. For the South, I study Todok (Ethics) textbooks taken from the early 1960s and 1979. For the North, I examine seventeen textbooks published between 1986 and 1991.
Change in U.S. Policy Toward South Korea in the Early 1960s
Authors: Park Tae-Gyun
Published: April 2011

The United States changed its policy toward South Korea in 1961. Policies focusing on stabilization programs, military support, and foreign private capital were replaced by policies stressing economic development, social reforms, and long-range U.S. public assistance. The establishment of the junta in South Korea resulted in a complementary condition in which the United States could change its policy. This change was stimulated by political, economic, and personnel changes in South Korea in the late 1950s and the transition in the overall foreign policy of the Kennedy administration. The appearance of new ideas in both the South Korean and the American governments in the early 1960s played decisive roles.
Korean History Studies in Japan: The 1998 Shigaku Zasshi Review
Authors: Yi Sŏngshi , Rokutanda Yutaka , Matsumoto Takenori
Published: April 2011

Shigaku zasshi , the leading history journal in Japan, devotes its fifth issue every year to historiography reviews of scholarship published in Japan over the previous year on various national and regional histories. The reviews for Korean history are written by specialists and introduce and direct readers to publications in many fields, including archaeology, economic history, and social history. The summaries are not as lengthy as those prepared for Japanese and Chinese histories, but a glance at those written since 1949 shows the growth of Korean history studies in Japan, the emergence of successive generations of scholars, the breadth of topics being investigated, and the diversity of methodologies and interpretations.1 Information inside parentheses was parenthetical in the original Japanese. Information inside square brackets has been supplied by the translators.
Bellonet and Roze: Overzealous Servants of Empire and the 1866 French Attack on Korea
Authors: Kane Daniel C.
Published: April 2011

In February 1866 anti-Christian persecutions by the Taewǒn'gun resulted in the execution of nine French Jesuit missionaries secretly proselytizing in Korea. French reaction was extreme, with the French Far Eastern Squadron undertaking a small-scale invasion that fall. The attack, made in hopes of inflicting retribution and gaining concessions, was a dismal failure, ending in French withdrawal and the end of French missionary activity in Korea for a decade. The decision to attack has usually been viewed solely in its "Korean context" and thus been interpreted as a rash reaction to events there by the leading French diplomat in China. When viewed in the broader context of French policy in the Far East, especially China, the French decision to attack can be better understood.
A Critique on Traditional Korean Family Institutions: Kim Wǒnju's "Death of a Girl"
Authors: Kim Yung-Hee
Published: April 2011

Kim Wǒnju's "Death of a Girl" is a work with a thesis. The short story represents the author's sharp criticism of traditional Korean family structure and practices, which, she believes, have had deadly ramifications on Korean society's young, especially females. Kim drives her message home by having the exemplary young heroine of the narrative commit suicide in defiance of the horrifying and dehumanizing demands of her parents intent upon selling her as a concubine. In so doing, Kim underscores the compelling urgency of reforms in dictatorial parental authority over children, in polygamy and male philandering, and in the commercialization of the female body prevalent in the early decades of twentieth-century Korea. In short, the story promotes Kim's vision of an ideal society, which, freed of coercion stemming from familial and gender hierarchy, would allow its members freedom of individual choice, basic human dignity, and, ultimately, personal happiness.
L'Affaire Villemin: Quand la littérature s'empare du fait divers
Authors: Cauville Joëlle
Published: April 2011

Un fait divers a passionné la France profonde des années quatre-vingt: "L'Affaire Villemin." Le regain d'intérêt pour celle-ci se manifeste, en ce nouveau millénaire, par le roman de Philippe Besson: L'Enfant d'octobre , (Grasset, 2006). L'auteur s'y fait le fervent défenseur de Christine Villemin, la mère du petit Grégory, retrouvé mort, noyé dans la Vologne, décrivant son calvaire de mater dolorosa , accusée d'infanticide. La sortie du livre donne lieu dans les médias ( Le Nouvel Observateur , 11–17 mai 2006) au rappel du "scandaleux" article de Marguerite Duras dans le journal Libération (17 juillet 1984), selon le qualificatif choisi par son rédacteur en chef, Serge July. Cet article intitulé "Sublime, forcément sublime Christine V" dépeignait Christine Villemin en Médée , certes criminelle mais victime d'une société misogyne. "L'Affaire Villemin" illustre magistralement le parallèle entre la structure du fait divers telle que l'ont analysée Roland Barthes et Georges Auclair et le récit mythique.