Pub Date : 2019-12-01DOI: 10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.002
Sumi Lee
{"title":"“Middle Way” Approach on Buddhist Ethics: Wŏnhyo on the Doctrinal Problem of the Buddha-nature and the Icchantika","authors":"Sumi Lee","doi":"10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42297,"journal":{"name":"Acta Koreana","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78399469","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-12-01DOI: 10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.005
Don Baker
Abstract:For centuries a question at the core of Korean philosophical and religious thinking has been how to reconcile the recognition of moral frailty with the assumption that human beings have the ability to become morally perfect. One Buddhist solution has been to call for the gradual replacement of pre-enlightenment habits with moral habits after becoming enlightened to one’s own Buddha nature. Confucians have instead focused on managing the relationship between innate moral tendencies and equally innate selfish emotions. Christians offered another solution to this conundrum: dropping the assumption that human beings on their own can achieve moral perfection and instead focusing on relying to God’s help to overcome moral frailty. Indigenous new religions have proposed yet another solution: waiting for the unfavorable conditions that prevail in the world today to change so that it will be easier to act the way we know we should act. None of these proposed solutions satisfy everyone. As a result, Koreans continue their search for a way to explain, and overcome, moral failure while maintaining confidence in their ability to do so.
{"title":"The Korean Dilemma: Assuming Perfectibility but Recognizing Moral Frailty","authors":"Don Baker","doi":"10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:For centuries a question at the core of Korean philosophical and religious thinking has been how to reconcile the recognition of moral frailty with the assumption that human beings have the ability to become morally perfect. One Buddhist solution has been to call for the gradual replacement of pre-enlightenment habits with moral habits after becoming enlightened to one’s own Buddha nature. Confucians have instead focused on managing the relationship between innate moral tendencies and equally innate selfish emotions. Christians offered another solution to this conundrum: dropping the assumption that human beings on their own can achieve moral perfection and instead focusing on relying to God’s help to overcome moral frailty. Indigenous new religions have proposed yet another solution: waiting for the unfavorable conditions that prevail in the world today to change so that it will be easier to act the way we know we should act. None of these proposed solutions satisfy everyone. As a result, Koreans continue their search for a way to explain, and overcome, moral failure while maintaining confidence in their ability to do so.","PeriodicalId":42297,"journal":{"name":"Acta Koreana","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74224859","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-12-01DOI: 10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.006
Soo-Hyun Mun
{"title":"Creating Legitimacy through Media Discourse: German Press Reporting on the Japanese Colonisation of Korea, 1905–1910","authors":"Soo-Hyun Mun","doi":"10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42297,"journal":{"name":"Acta Koreana","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74281620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-12-01DOI: 10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.007
Jae-Yon Lee, Hyunjoo Kim
{"title":"The Text-Mining of Munhwa (Culture): The Case of a Popular Magazine in 1930s Korea","authors":"Jae-Yon Lee, Hyunjoo Kim","doi":"10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.007","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42297,"journal":{"name":"Acta Koreana","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89916042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-12-01DOI: 10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.004
Kim Halla
{"title":"Tasŏk Yu Yŏngmo on God as Nothingness","authors":"Kim Halla","doi":"10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.004","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42297,"journal":{"name":"Acta Koreana","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79025461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-12-01DOI: 10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.008
Kim Sunghee
Abstract:The government of Kim Jong Il (Kim Chŏngil) modified the meaning and purpose of during the North Korean famine and the early Military-First period (1994–2002). During the economic recession after the Soviet bloc collapsed, the North Korean government was incapable of providing material rewards to workers. Thus, the state attempted to transform labor into a spiritual rather than material practice. Despite the shortage of material resources and energy, the regime had to make the workers stay in their workplaces to maintain social stability. At that time, North Korean fiction often described people who worked for spiritual enlightenment rather than for material gain. In the novel and historical prose of this period, protagonists work not for their livelihoods, but for their honorable death; they voluntarily martyred themselves for their country, party, and leader Kim Jong Il. This study explores Song Sangwŏn’s Ch’onggŏm ŭl tŭlgo (Taking up bayonets) (2002) to examine how North Koreans worked, lived, and died at the turn of the twentieth century.
{"title":"The Prosody of Working and the Narrative of Martyrdom: Daily Life and Death in North Korean Literature during the Great Famine and the Early Military-First Age (1994–2002)","authors":"Kim Sunghee","doi":"10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The government of Kim Jong Il (Kim Chŏngil) modified the meaning and purpose of during the North Korean famine and the early Military-First period (1994–2002). During the economic recession after the Soviet bloc collapsed, the North Korean government was incapable of providing material rewards to workers. Thus, the state attempted to transform labor into a spiritual rather than material practice. Despite the shortage of material resources and energy, the regime had to make the workers stay in their workplaces to maintain social stability. At that time, North Korean fiction often described people who worked for spiritual enlightenment rather than for material gain. In the novel and historical prose of this period, protagonists work not for their livelihoods, but for their honorable death; they voluntarily martyred themselves for their country, party, and leader Kim Jong Il. This study explores Song Sangwŏn’s Ch’onggŏm ŭl tŭlgo (Taking up bayonets) (2002) to examine how North Koreans worked, lived, and died at the turn of the twentieth century.","PeriodicalId":42297,"journal":{"name":"Acta Koreana","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89474431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-12-01DOI: 10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.003
Edward Y. J. Chung
Abstract:Evil is a key concept in Confucianism and other world religions. The problem of evil is therefore central to our interreligious discussion of human nature and the world. In Western scholarship, however, Confucian moral idealism is occasionally criticized for being too optimistic or unable to articulate the nature of evil; it is philosophically or theologically weak, also due to the absence of an omnipotent, omniscient God (divine law-giver). If we take the Confucian doctrine of innate human goodness for granted, how do we explain the active presence of evil in the human world?This article discusses the heart of T’oegye’s thought by focusing on the problem of evil and the way to transcend it. Yi Hwang 李滉 (T’oegye 退溪, 1501– 1570) was an eminent Korean thinker who greatly influenced Neo-Confucian ethics and spirituality. By using a textual and interpretive approach, I present his major works including the Sŏnghak sipto 聖學十圖 (Ten diagrams on sage learning), Chasŏngnok 自省錄 (Record of self-reflection), and “Four-Seven Debate Letters.” T’oegye eloquently criticized the origin of moral evil and emphasized a self-transcending way to remove evil and do good. What is important about his interpretation and how does it enrich our global understanding of good and evil? I conclude by considering this and related questions from a comparative and interreligious standpoint.
{"title":"Yi T’oegye on Transcending the Problem of Evil: A Neo-Confucian and Interreligious Perspective","authors":"Edward Y. J. Chung","doi":"10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Evil is a key concept in Confucianism and other world religions. The problem of evil is therefore central to our interreligious discussion of human nature and the world. In Western scholarship, however, Confucian moral idealism is occasionally criticized for being too optimistic or unable to articulate the nature of evil; it is philosophically or theologically weak, also due to the absence of an omnipotent, omniscient God (divine law-giver). If we take the Confucian doctrine of innate human goodness for granted, how do we explain the active presence of evil in the human world?This article discusses the heart of T’oegye’s thought by focusing on the problem of evil and the way to transcend it. Yi Hwang 李滉 (T’oegye 退溪, 1501– 1570) was an eminent Korean thinker who greatly influenced Neo-Confucian ethics and spirituality. By using a textual and interpretive approach, I present his major works including the Sŏnghak sipto 聖學十圖 (Ten diagrams on sage learning), Chasŏngnok 自省錄 (Record of self-reflection), and “Four-Seven Debate Letters.” T’oegye eloquently criticized the origin of moral evil and emphasized a self-transcending way to remove evil and do good. What is important about his interpretation and how does it enrich our global understanding of good and evil? I conclude by considering this and related questions from a comparative and interreligious standpoint.","PeriodicalId":42297,"journal":{"name":"Acta Koreana","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88826052","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-12-01DOI: 10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.001
Robert E. Buswell
Abstract:The origins of good and evil and the problem of theodicy present a special set of challenges in Buddhism, which is relatively less concerned with consideration of first causes than are monotheistic religions. Buddhism focuses less on the issue of why evil and its incumbent suffering are present in the world and more on the question of how to respond to that evil. This emphasis on soteriology over metaphysics is seen in the characteristic invocation of pragmatic criteria for the evaluation of doctrines and practices; the recurrent motif of the Buddha as therapist rather than theorist; and the pervasive influence of the meta-theory of upāya (expedients or stratagems). This article will examine the soteriological dimension of the broader Buddhist response to evil and explore some of the explicit examinations of the problem of a Buddhist “theodicy” in later Mahāyāna monistic ontologies, which are explored in Korean Buddhist materials: viz., if the mind is innately enlightened or inherently pure, whence do ignorance or defilements arise?
{"title":"The Origins of Good and Evil and the Challenge of Theodicy in the Buddhist Tradition","authors":"Robert E. Buswell","doi":"10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18399/acta.2019.22.2.001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The origins of good and evil and the problem of theodicy present a special set of challenges in Buddhism, which is relatively less concerned with consideration of first causes than are monotheistic religions. Buddhism focuses less on the issue of why evil and its incumbent suffering are present in the world and more on the question of how to respond to that evil. This emphasis on soteriology over metaphysics is seen in the characteristic invocation of pragmatic criteria for the evaluation of doctrines and practices; the recurrent motif of the Buddha as therapist rather than theorist; and the pervasive influence of the meta-theory of upāya (expedients or stratagems). This article will examine the soteriological dimension of the broader Buddhist response to evil and explore some of the explicit examinations of the problem of a Buddhist “theodicy” in later Mahāyāna monistic ontologies, which are explored in Korean Buddhist materials: viz., if the mind is innately enlightened or inherently pure, whence do ignorance or defilements arise?","PeriodicalId":42297,"journal":{"name":"Acta Koreana","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89430281","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-06-01DOI: 10.18399/ACTA.2019.22.1.004
Seo Yoonjung
Abstract:It is noted that European pictorial technique was introduced during the Chosŏn dynasty via China and that Western objects exchanged through diplomatic activities by Chosŏn envoys played a significant role in the spread of this new painting style in Korea. However, it is not fully understood how Chosŏn people perceived Western painting techniques, which elements they favored and which were less appreciated. Nor do we know by what routes the new visual elements were transmitted. Focusing on multiple channels through which various images were imported and the diverse agents who took part in the cultural transmission between Chosŏn Korea and Qing China, this study explores Chosŏn Korea’s reception and understanding of Western painting techniques and the application of this new style in their works of art, such as “Han Palace” or “Towers and Pavilions” in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In addition, Chinese paintings and prints, which were mass-produced for larger markets and circulated throughout China as well as exported to other foreign countries are investigated as possible sources for the Chosŏn works. Taking paintings by professional painters in Beijing working outside of the Qing imperial court and Suzhou prints as vehicles of carrying the new artistic taste and pictorial techniques, this research proposes the assumption that these Chinese visual materials infused with Western style were imported to and circulated in Korea from the late eighteenth century onward and that these foreign images contributed to Korea’s (mis)perception and (mis)understanding of Chinese art and European pictorial conventions.
{"title":"A New Way of Seeing: Commercial Paintings and Prints from China and European Painting Techniques in Late Chosŏn Court Painting","authors":"Seo Yoonjung","doi":"10.18399/ACTA.2019.22.1.004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18399/ACTA.2019.22.1.004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:It is noted that European pictorial technique was introduced during the Chosŏn dynasty via China and that Western objects exchanged through diplomatic activities by Chosŏn envoys played a significant role in the spread of this new painting style in Korea. However, it is not fully understood how Chosŏn people perceived Western painting techniques, which elements they favored and which were less appreciated. Nor do we know by what routes the new visual elements were transmitted. Focusing on multiple channels through which various images were imported and the diverse agents who took part in the cultural transmission between Chosŏn Korea and Qing China, this study explores Chosŏn Korea’s reception and understanding of Western painting techniques and the application of this new style in their works of art, such as “Han Palace” or “Towers and Pavilions” in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In addition, Chinese paintings and prints, which were mass-produced for larger markets and circulated throughout China as well as exported to other foreign countries are investigated as possible sources for the Chosŏn works. Taking paintings by professional painters in Beijing working outside of the Qing imperial court and Suzhou prints as vehicles of carrying the new artistic taste and pictorial techniques, this research proposes the assumption that these Chinese visual materials infused with Western style were imported to and circulated in Korea from the late eighteenth century onward and that these foreign images contributed to Korea’s (mis)perception and (mis)understanding of Chinese art and European pictorial conventions.","PeriodicalId":42297,"journal":{"name":"Acta Koreana","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82973177","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-06-01DOI: 10.18399/ACTA.2019.22.1.002
K. Chung
Abstract:Mixrice, an art collective of artists Yang Ch’ŏlmo [Yang Chul Mo] and Cho Chiŭn [Cho Ji Eun] won the 2016 Korea Artist Prize for their provocative multimedia project that featured a two-channel video installation, titled “The Vine Chronicle.” Centrally documenting the various lives of trees, like a 450-year old Zelkova tree from the village of Kangdong-ri, the video portrays their itinerant lives as they are moved to various sites to fuel capitalist development schemes: camping resorts, apartment complexes and redevelopment sites. Using this exhibit and its unique post-pastoral perspective as a frame, this article explores contemporary perceptions of Korean environment in art and literature. In this study, I am interested in drawing connections among ecocritical artworks and literary works that highlight the dispossession of human and non-human life and the history of rapid South Korean development. These works seek to complicate notions of South Korean development, environmental degradation and migration through a post-pastoral frame.
{"title":"Post-pastoral Perspectives of Korean Environment in Contemporary Art and Literature","authors":"K. Chung","doi":"10.18399/ACTA.2019.22.1.002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18399/ACTA.2019.22.1.002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Mixrice, an art collective of artists Yang Ch’ŏlmo [Yang Chul Mo] and Cho Chiŭn [Cho Ji Eun] won the 2016 Korea Artist Prize for their provocative multimedia project that featured a two-channel video installation, titled “The Vine Chronicle.” Centrally documenting the various lives of trees, like a 450-year old Zelkova tree from the village of Kangdong-ri, the video portrays their itinerant lives as they are moved to various sites to fuel capitalist development schemes: camping resorts, apartment complexes and redevelopment sites. Using this exhibit and its unique post-pastoral perspective as a frame, this article explores contemporary perceptions of Korean environment in art and literature. In this study, I am interested in drawing connections among ecocritical artworks and literary works that highlight the dispossession of human and non-human life and the history of rapid South Korean development. These works seek to complicate notions of South Korean development, environmental degradation and migration through a post-pastoral frame.","PeriodicalId":42297,"journal":{"name":"Acta Koreana","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80829598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}