Reading North Korea
Subtitle: an ethnological inquiry
By: Sonia Ryang
Series: Harvard East Asian monographs -- 341
Publisher: Harvard University Asia Center; Distributed by Harvard University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 260
ISBN-13: 9780674062474
Subjects: Social life and customs; History and criticism; Korean literature; Literature and society; Ethnography
Description: In this innovative book, Sonia Ryang casts new light onto the study of North Korean culture and society by reading literary texts as sources of ethnographic data. Analyzing and interpreting the rituals and language embodied in a range of literary works published in the 1970s and 1980s, Ryang focuses critical attention on three central themes -- love, war, and self -- that reflect the nearly complete overlap of the personal, social, and political realms in North Korean society. The ideology embedded in these propagandistic works laid the cultural foundation for the nation as a "perpetual ritual state," where social structures and personal relations are suspended in tribute to Kim Il Sung, the political and spiritual leader who died in 1994 but lives eternally in the hearts of his people and still weaves the social fabric of present-day North Korea. -- Book jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.