Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.1215/07311613-9155141
Sonia Ryang
Abstract:North Korea is one of a very small number of countries in the world that an anthropologist has not set foot in with the purpose of conducting long-term ethnographic fieldwork. Given the country’s closed nature, anthropology seems to be the least qualified discipline with which to approach North Korea. Upon closer examination, however, this might not be the case; anthropology may offer unexpected advantages, not only permitting us to study North Korea but also to reflect on aspects of our own societies and cultures with a critical eye. This article explores both the challenges to be faced and the rewards to be gained by an anthropologist studying North Korea.
{"title":"Anthropology as Method: North Korea at a Distance","authors":"Sonia Ryang","doi":"10.1215/07311613-9155141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-9155141","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:North Korea is one of a very small number of countries in the world that an anthropologist has not set foot in with the purpose of conducting long-term ethnographic fieldwork. Given the country’s closed nature, anthropology seems to be the least qualified discipline with which to approach North Korea. Upon closer examination, however, this might not be the case; anthropology may offer unexpected advantages, not only permitting us to study North Korea but also to reflect on aspects of our own societies and cultures with a critical eye. This article explores both the challenges to be faced and the rewards to be gained by an anthropologist studying North Korea.","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42163007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.1215/07311613-9155220
I. J. Kief
Abstract:This article argues that the North Korean mediascape of the 1950s and 1960s must be understood in relationship to its interaction with publications from the South. To do so, it makes three methodological interventions. First, it demonstrates how North Korean writers’ own practices of citation can be used to outline the extensive and expanding body of South Korean texts available in the North during this period. Second, it shows how a focus on such references and their changing character allows us to see a shift in the late 1950s and early 1960s: one that enabled a selection of South Korean texts to be reprinted in the North, producing intersecting reading publics. Finally, it demonstrates how an understanding of this changing relationship to South Korean texts illuminates changing writing practices in the North and the hybrid texts linking North and South Korean authorship that they produced. The article thus contends that the 1950s and 1960s mediascapes of the two Koreas must be seen as imbricated rather than isolated entities.
{"title":"Reading Seoul in Pyongyang: Cross-Border Mediascapes in Early Cold War North Korea","authors":"I. J. Kief","doi":"10.1215/07311613-9155220","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-9155220","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article argues that the North Korean mediascape of the 1950s and 1960s must be understood in relationship to its interaction with publications from the South. To do so, it makes three methodological interventions. First, it demonstrates how North Korean writers’ own practices of citation can be used to outline the extensive and expanding body of South Korean texts available in the North during this period. Second, it shows how a focus on such references and their changing character allows us to see a shift in the late 1950s and early 1960s: one that enabled a selection of South Korean texts to be reprinted in the North, producing intersecting reading publics. Finally, it demonstrates how an understanding of this changing relationship to South Korean texts illuminates changing writing practices in the North and the hybrid texts linking North and South Korean authorship that they produced. The article thus contends that the 1950s and 1960s mediascapes of the two Koreas must be seen as imbricated rather than isolated entities.","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47833932","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.1215/07311613-9155206
K. Minsun
Abstract:This study examines the grammar of tension and appropriation in North Korean literature, thereby shedding light on the complex meaning and metaphors hidden within the external (literal) narratives of North Korean literary texts. The true meaning of North Korean literature is situated between the political reality and the tension created by its narratives. This tension, concealed within the constraints of custom and form, permeates the text and the spaces between the lines. Accordingly, when reading North Korean literature, in addition to considering the social and literary contexts of the text, one needs to be careful not to miss the hidden meanings held within. This study reads between the lines to examine the critical view of the current reality that North Korean literature is a metaphor for and the desires that are symptomatically expressed therein. Specifically, the focus is on North Korean science fiction, which uses a grammar of appropriation to discuss the realities of the present through narratives of the future.
{"title":"Inside North Korean Literature: The Hidden Meaning of Narratives","authors":"K. Minsun","doi":"10.1215/07311613-9155206","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-9155206","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This study examines the grammar of tension and appropriation in North Korean literature, thereby shedding light on the complex meaning and metaphors hidden within the external (literal) narratives of North Korean literary texts. The true meaning of North Korean literature is situated between the political reality and the tension created by its narratives. This tension, concealed within the constraints of custom and form, permeates the text and the spaces between the lines. Accordingly, when reading North Korean literature, in addition to considering the social and literary contexts of the text, one needs to be careful not to miss the hidden meanings held within. This study reads between the lines to examine the critical view of the current reality that North Korean literature is a metaphor for and the desires that are symptomatically expressed therein. Specifically, the focus is on North Korean science fiction, which uses a grammar of appropriation to discuss the realities of the present through narratives of the future.","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45621618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.1215/07311613-9155262
Nuri Kim
Abstract:Although Tan’gun, Korea’s mythical founding father, is often depicted as an undisputed symbol of Korean nationalism, this article sheds light on a more complex history in which Tan’gun stands at the center of contesting forces and ambiguous understandings. In fact, besides his nationalist deployment, he was also mobilized as a symbol of Korean-Japanese affinity, which, in turn, was based on centuries of Japanese engagements with the mythical progenitor. As a more cosmopolitan conceptualization of Tan’gun obtained imperialist dimensions in the early twentieth century, it also interacted with and stimulated Korean nationalist utilizations of the founding father. By investigating Tan’gun’s “other” history, this article complicates our understanding of how the figure of Tan’gun evolved into the prime symbol of Korean nationalism and how Koreans negotiated their historical identity within the Japanese empire.
{"title":"Ambiguous Founding Father: Tan’gun as a Korean-Japanese God","authors":"Nuri Kim","doi":"10.1215/07311613-9155262","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-9155262","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Although Tan’gun, Korea’s mythical founding father, is often depicted as an undisputed symbol of Korean nationalism, this article sheds light on a more complex history in which Tan’gun stands at the center of contesting forces and ambiguous understandings. In fact, besides his nationalist deployment, he was also mobilized as a symbol of Korean-Japanese affinity, which, in turn, was based on centuries of Japanese engagements with the mythical progenitor. As a more cosmopolitan conceptualization of Tan’gun obtained imperialist dimensions in the early twentieth century, it also interacted with and stimulated Korean nationalist utilizations of the founding father. By investigating Tan’gun’s “other” history, this article complicates our understanding of how the figure of Tan’gun evolved into the prime symbol of Korean nationalism and how Koreans negotiated their historical identity within the Japanese empire.","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47872122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.1215/07311613-9155154
Jay Song
Abstract:North Korean studies is an established subfield within Korean studies. The current article reviews methodological trends in North Korean studies, mainly in social sciences, over the past two decades. It aims to demonstrate the evolution of data and methodologies employed by scholars in the field by focusing on three methods—statistical analyses, interviews, and theory testing—as well as to examine benefits and challenges associated with each methodology. The study finds that data and methodologies have become significantly diversified and sophisticated with increased accessibility to digitized North Korean materials, multidisciplinary eclectic methods, and computational analytical tools used by a new generation of scholars. At the core, it is the validity of data that can genuinely contribute to evidence-based scientific investigation. It also highlights that researchers’ epistemological barriers can seriously undermine the transparency in data and research design. Self-reflection, cross-examination, and rigorous peer review can further advance the quality of North Korean studies.
{"title":"North Korea as a Method: A Critical Review","authors":"Jay Song","doi":"10.1215/07311613-9155154","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-9155154","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:North Korean studies is an established subfield within Korean studies. The current article reviews methodological trends in North Korean studies, mainly in social sciences, over the past two decades. It aims to demonstrate the evolution of data and methodologies employed by scholars in the field by focusing on three methods—statistical analyses, interviews, and theory testing—as well as to examine benefits and challenges associated with each methodology. The study finds that data and methodologies have become significantly diversified and sophisticated with increased accessibility to digitized North Korean materials, multidisciplinary eclectic methods, and computational analytical tools used by a new generation of scholars. At the core, it is the validity of data that can genuinely contribute to evidence-based scientific investigation. It also highlights that researchers’ epistemological barriers can seriously undermine the transparency in data and research design. Self-reflection, cross-examination, and rigorous peer review can further advance the quality of North Korean studies.","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43546072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.1215/07311613-9155180
G. Brazinsky
Abstract:This article assesses the memoirs of Chinese volunteers as a source for better understanding social interactions between the Chinese and North Koreans during the Korean War. The hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers serving in Korea were an almost ubiquitous presence in wartime North Korea. Yet the relationship between the volunteers and North Korean civilians has not been the subject of many studies. Memoirs written by the volunteers are one of the few sources that document these interactions. Among the subjects the volunteers wrote about, their encounters with older North Koreans whom they called “mothers” or ŏmŏni were among the most prominent. While acknowledging the propagandistic intent behind some of these memoirs, the article argues that they do shed light on some of the emotional norms that shaped relations between North Korean women and the volunteers even if they cannot always be treated as completely reliable descriptions of events.
{"title":"Remembering Ŏmŏni: Using Chinese Memoirs to Understand Sino-North Korean Interactions during the Korean War","authors":"G. Brazinsky","doi":"10.1215/07311613-9155180","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-9155180","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article assesses the memoirs of Chinese volunteers as a source for better understanding social interactions between the Chinese and North Koreans during the Korean War. The hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers serving in Korea were an almost ubiquitous presence in wartime North Korea. Yet the relationship between the volunteers and North Korean civilians has not been the subject of many studies. Memoirs written by the volunteers are one of the few sources that document these interactions. Among the subjects the volunteers wrote about, their encounters with older North Koreans whom they called “mothers” or ŏmŏni were among the most prominent. While acknowledging the propagandistic intent behind some of these memoirs, the article argues that they do shed light on some of the emotional norms that shaped relations between North Korean women and the volunteers even if they cannot always be treated as completely reliable descriptions of events.","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45449247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.1215/07311613-9155233
Youme Kim, K. Kim
Abstract:This study examines the images of tigers in late Chosŏn stories as they relate to ecological changes during the late Chosŏn period. As a popular literary topic, tigers have held various and sometimes conflicting roles, ranging from Heaven’s sacred agents to brutal beasts. The increase in human population and the expansion of farmland caused the loss of tigers’ habitats and narrowed their food sources, which eventually increased tiger-human encounters and intensified state-led tiger extermination policies. This study shows that the images of tigers generally shifted from formidable and mysterious beings to controllable, wounded, and even obedient animals over time. The frequent descriptions of tigers killed by women, tigers asking for people’s help, and porridge-eating tigers in late Chosŏn stories reflect people’s modified view of tigers, even though actual tigers remained a threat during that period. A consideration of the ecological factors depicted in tiger stories over time suggests that changes in the societal point of view regarding these animals impact how tigers’ characters were portrayed.
{"title":"Images of Tigers in Late Chosŏn Stories: In Relation to the Ecological Crisis of Chosŏn Tigers","authors":"Youme Kim, K. Kim","doi":"10.1215/07311613-9155233","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-9155233","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This study examines the images of tigers in late Chosŏn stories as they relate to ecological changes during the late Chosŏn period. As a popular literary topic, tigers have held various and sometimes conflicting roles, ranging from Heaven’s sacred agents to brutal beasts. The increase in human population and the expansion of farmland caused the loss of tigers’ habitats and narrowed their food sources, which eventually increased tiger-human encounters and intensified state-led tiger extermination policies. This study shows that the images of tigers generally shifted from formidable and mysterious beings to controllable, wounded, and even obedient animals over time. The frequent descriptions of tigers killed by women, tigers asking for people’s help, and porridge-eating tigers in late Chosŏn stories reflect people’s modified view of tigers, even though actual tigers remained a threat during that period. A consideration of the ecological factors depicted in tiger stories over time suggests that changes in the societal point of view regarding these animals impact how tigers’ characters were portrayed.","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46590200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.1215/07311613-9155167
J. Person
Abstract:While the secretive North Korean government restricts access to its archives, and reliable statistical data is hard to come by, scholars have access to many more sources on North Korean history than most people think. Among the available materials is the diplomatic record of North Korea’s former communist allies, which provides backdoor access into prevailing political, economic, and cultural conditions in the DPRK throughout the Cold War. These materials have shed rare light on flash points in modern Korean history, including the Korean War and incidents that transformed North Korea’s political and diplomatic behavior, for example the 1956 August Plenum of the Korean Workers’ Party. Yet, as this article argues, these materials are not without their shortcomings and come with a few caveats. Scholars should not treat what these materials report as empirical fact on the grounds of which one can write an authoritative history of the DPRK. Just as no responsible scholar of American foreign relations would utilize US records without questioning them for evidence of Orientalist thinking, scholars utilizing the Soviet bloc records should first interrogate the materials for subjective perceptions or racialized assumptions about North Korea’s political and cultural inferiority that influenced the diplomats who authored the documents.
{"title":"Narrating North Korean History through Socialist Bloc Archives: Opportunities and Pitfalls","authors":"J. Person","doi":"10.1215/07311613-9155167","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-9155167","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:While the secretive North Korean government restricts access to its archives, and reliable statistical data is hard to come by, scholars have access to many more sources on North Korean history than most people think. Among the available materials is the diplomatic record of North Korea’s former communist allies, which provides backdoor access into prevailing political, economic, and cultural conditions in the DPRK throughout the Cold War. These materials have shed rare light on flash points in modern Korean history, including the Korean War and incidents that transformed North Korea’s political and diplomatic behavior, for example the 1956 August Plenum of the Korean Workers’ Party. Yet, as this article argues, these materials are not without their shortcomings and come with a few caveats. Scholars should not treat what these materials report as empirical fact on the grounds of which one can write an authoritative history of the DPRK. Just as no responsible scholar of American foreign relations would utilize US records without questioning them for evidence of Orientalist thinking, scholars utilizing the Soviet bloc records should first interrogate the materials for subjective perceptions or racialized assumptions about North Korea’s political and cultural inferiority that influenced the diplomats who authored the documents.","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44561323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.1215/07311613-9155269
Kelly Y. Jeong
{"title":"Parameters of Disavowal: Colonial Representation in South Korean Cinema","authors":"Kelly Y. Jeong","doi":"10.1215/07311613-9155269","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-9155269","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42789737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.1215/07311613-9155193
C. Kim
Abstract:This article explores North Korea’s postwar reconstruction through the variegated features of architectural development in Pyongyang. The rebirth of Pyongyang as the center of both state authority and work culture is distinctly represented by architecture. In this setting, architecture as theory and practice was divided into two contiguous and interconnected types: monumental structures symbolizing the utopian vision of the state and vernacular structures instrumental to the regime of production in which the apartment was an exemplary form. The author makes three claims: first, Pyongyang’s monumental and vernacular architectural forms each embody both utopian and utilitarian features; second, the multiplicity of meaning exhibited in each architectural form is connected to the transnational process of bureaucratic expansion and industrial developmentalism; and third, North Korea’s postwar architectural history is a lens through which state socialism of the twentieth century can be better understood—not as an exceptional moment but as a constituent of globalized modernity, a historical formation dependent on the collusive expansion of state power and industrial capitalism. A substantial part of this article is a discussion of the methods and sources relevant to writing an architectural history of North Korea.
{"title":"Pyongyang Modern: Architecture of Multiplicity in Postwar North Korea","authors":"C. Kim","doi":"10.1215/07311613-9155193","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/07311613-9155193","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article explores North Korea’s postwar reconstruction through the variegated features of architectural development in Pyongyang. The rebirth of Pyongyang as the center of both state authority and work culture is distinctly represented by architecture. In this setting, architecture as theory and practice was divided into two contiguous and interconnected types: monumental structures symbolizing the utopian vision of the state and vernacular structures instrumental to the regime of production in which the apartment was an exemplary form. The author makes three claims: first, Pyongyang’s monumental and vernacular architectural forms each embody both utopian and utilitarian features; second, the multiplicity of meaning exhibited in each architectural form is connected to the transnational process of bureaucratic expansion and industrial developmentalism; and third, North Korea’s postwar architectural history is a lens through which state socialism of the twentieth century can be better understood—not as an exceptional moment but as a constituent of globalized modernity, a historical formation dependent on the collusive expansion of state power and industrial capitalism. A substantial part of this article is a discussion of the methods and sources relevant to writing an architectural history of North Korea.","PeriodicalId":43322,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45962493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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