Abstract: Starting in the 1990s, digital humanists have endeavored to create the "macroscope," a holistic research environment that allows for a flexible, multiscalar reading of large text corpora. Many macroscopes have since emerged, from fields as diverse as Danish folklore studies, English literary studies, and Chinese biographical studies. But in creating Silloker, we are the first to offer a "historian's macroscope" for premodern Korean chronicles. Silloker is a digital platform that opens creative avenues into studying Korea's Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910). Its title takes after Chosŏn wangjo sillok ("Veritable Records of the Chosŏn Dynasty" 朝鮮王朝實錄), court annals that cover five centuries and topics as varied as diplomacy, economy, religion, quotidian life, and natural phenomena. For this archive and others—for example, Diaries of the Royal Secretariat 承政院日記 ( Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi ), Records of the Border Defense Council 備邊司謄錄 ( Pibyŏnsa tŭngnok )—our platform features new search capacities and tools for exploratory data analysis. First, it allows users to make unified queries across multiple archives and download the search results. Second, it offers a tool for aggregating and graphing the frequency of search hits throughout the five-centuries long dynasty, generating real-time results in table and graph. This essay introduces Silloker, its functionalities, and data architecture. It then provides an example case study of the Little Ice Age in Korea to demonstrate the platform's utility for historical research.
{"title":"Korean Chronicles Under a Macroscope: Towards a Digital Infrastructure in Premodern Korean Studies","authors":"Hyeok Hweon Kang, Michelle Suh","doi":"10.1353/ks.2023.a908616","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2023.a908616","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Starting in the 1990s, digital humanists have endeavored to create the \"macroscope,\" a holistic research environment that allows for a flexible, multiscalar reading of large text corpora. Many macroscopes have since emerged, from fields as diverse as Danish folklore studies, English literary studies, and Chinese biographical studies. But in creating Silloker, we are the first to offer a \"historian's macroscope\" for premodern Korean chronicles. Silloker is a digital platform that opens creative avenues into studying Korea's Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910). Its title takes after Chosŏn wangjo sillok (\"Veritable Records of the Chosŏn Dynasty\" 朝鮮王朝實錄), court annals that cover five centuries and topics as varied as diplomacy, economy, religion, quotidian life, and natural phenomena. For this archive and others—for example, Diaries of the Royal Secretariat 承政院日記 ( Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi ), Records of the Border Defense Council 備邊司謄錄 ( Pibyŏnsa tŭngnok )—our platform features new search capacities and tools for exploratory data analysis. First, it allows users to make unified queries across multiple archives and download the search results. Second, it offers a tool for aggregating and graphing the frequency of search hits throughout the five-centuries long dynasty, generating real-time results in table and graph. This essay introduces Silloker, its functionalities, and data architecture. It then provides an example case study of the Little Ice Age in Korea to demonstrate the platform's utility for historical research.","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135957677","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract: This article discusses the formidable challenges that the advent of big data brings to the digital humanities broadly and proposes some ways the Korean studies community can prepare to navigate these uncharted waters. Standard digital humanities training in data mining, text analysis, mapping, network science, and machine learning will be developed and refined over the coming years, as will research concerning the ephemeral nature of new media, web archives, and the ethics of artificial intelligence. Yet I contend that established responses to the digital transformation of the humanities, while timely and necessary, will prove inadequate for handling petabyte- and exabyte-scale born-digital sources. In the Zettabyte Era, more data is processed in real time than all of the records produced from early times to the 2010s. To make sense of the current information regime, we need critical reflections and comparisons to the classical internet age of the 1990s, the personal computer revolution of the 1980s, and early modern print cultures. This exercise will allow us to situate the humanities in an age of big data as an extension of traditional humanities research and at the same as something foreign.
{"title":"Big Data Studies: The Humanities in Uncharted Waters","authors":"Javier Cha","doi":"10.1353/ks.2023.a908625","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2023.a908625","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This article discusses the formidable challenges that the advent of big data brings to the digital humanities broadly and proposes some ways the Korean studies community can prepare to navigate these uncharted waters. Standard digital humanities training in data mining, text analysis, mapping, network science, and machine learning will be developed and refined over the coming years, as will research concerning the ephemeral nature of new media, web archives, and the ethics of artificial intelligence. Yet I contend that established responses to the digital transformation of the humanities, while timely and necessary, will prove inadequate for handling petabyte- and exabyte-scale born-digital sources. In the Zettabyte Era, more data is processed in real time than all of the records produced from early times to the 2010s. To make sense of the current information regime, we need critical reflections and comparisons to the classical internet age of the 1990s, the personal computer revolution of the 1980s, and early modern print cultures. This exercise will allow us to situate the humanities in an age of big data as an extension of traditional humanities research and at the same as something foreign.","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":"111 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135957690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract: This essay explores how basic computer programming and data visualization provides new tools to understand the respective development of rhetorical education and historical imagination in China and Korea during the same period of the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. Gathering data from large databases that contain thousands of collections printed in China and Korea, I show that a critical divergence emerged during the mid- and late sixteenth century in the field of rhetorical training. Specifically, the historical interests of Chinese elites gravitated toward the most recent episodes in the history of their own dynasty, while Chosŏn elites were increasingly devoted to the earliest phase of the Central Civilization. These observations complement existing studies that have focused on connections between China and Korea, and offer a starting point for understanding parallels and divergences between different regions and realms in East Asia.
{"title":"Visualizing Divergence: Rhetorical Education and Historical Imagination in China and Korea (ca. 1314–1644)","authors":"Shoufu Yin","doi":"10.1353/ks.2023.a908619","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2023.a908619","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This essay explores how basic computer programming and data visualization provides new tools to understand the respective development of rhetorical education and historical imagination in China and Korea during the same period of the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. Gathering data from large databases that contain thousands of collections printed in China and Korea, I show that a critical divergence emerged during the mid- and late sixteenth century in the field of rhetorical training. Specifically, the historical interests of Chinese elites gravitated toward the most recent episodes in the history of their own dynasty, while Chosŏn elites were increasingly devoted to the earliest phase of the Central Civilization. These observations complement existing studies that have focused on connections between China and Korea, and offer a starting point for understanding parallels and divergences between different regions and realms in East Asia.","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":"62 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135957861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EpilogueWhat Counts as Deep Learning in Korean Studies? Wayne de Fremery (bio) What counts as deep learning in Korean studies? Certainly, what appears in this special section. How then might these articles help us to think about Korean studies and deep learning? This is a usefully tricky question. The phrase deep learning has become an important double entendre in our time, suggesting both artificial forms of "intelligence" and deeply engaged forms of human knowing. What counts is similarly plural, entailing processes associated with counting (who or what does it) and its consequences, especially who and what are made to count (i.e. matter). The meaning of Korean studies is as usefully amorphous as ever. What follows is meditative rather than expository. A central hypothesis will hold my attention. It is uncomfortably simple: copies and practices related to copying are foundational infrastructure in the humanities, digital or otherwise, as practiced in Korean studies (and elsewhere). That is, as the articles in this special section demonstrate, a great deal of what we do as Koreanists and humanists concerns copying. Learning, especially the kind we call deep, is formulated through interactions with and as a function of producing copies. A corollary to this hypothesis, one that I will take up briefly in my conclusion, is that bibliography, that old discipline which can never quite [End Page 300] decide if it is an art or a science, provides tools for counting and considering copies, as well as doing the generative work of copying and making people, places, and things count. Bibliography can help us to think about copies, how we count them and make them count, as well as how we use them to learn. If anything, my meditation suggests an attention to the material objects and processes that formulate some of the infrastructures that support our work as Koreanists and as humanists helps situate us in our community and among others. My hope is that this situational awareness will be useful as we collectively consider the tremendous contributions made by the authors presented in this volume, as well as the ways that we might support and extend their work. Korean Studies Benedict Anderson has made the case that nations can, at least in part, be understood as opportunities for individuals to imagine themselves as part of a community.1 He identifies a material mechanism that facilitates this kind of imaginative process: print capitalism, especially the production of newspapers. Implicit in Anderson's analysis is the idea that engagements with copies created with fidelity at regular intervals and at industrial scale can enable individuals to collectively imagine national communities. Korean studies, I've come to think, can be understood in a similar way, as an imagined community. Rather than daily newspapers, copies of journals like this one allow us to image a community of people who share an interest in the contested ideas and geographies that formulate and
{"title":"Epilogue: What Counts as Deep Learning in Korean Studies?","authors":"Wayne de Fremery","doi":"10.1353/ks.2023.a908626","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2023.a908626","url":null,"abstract":"EpilogueWhat Counts as Deep Learning in Korean Studies? Wayne de Fremery (bio) What counts as deep learning in Korean studies? Certainly, what appears in this special section. How then might these articles help us to think about Korean studies and deep learning? This is a usefully tricky question. The phrase deep learning has become an important double entendre in our time, suggesting both artificial forms of \"intelligence\" and deeply engaged forms of human knowing. What counts is similarly plural, entailing processes associated with counting (who or what does it) and its consequences, especially who and what are made to count (i.e. matter). The meaning of Korean studies is as usefully amorphous as ever. What follows is meditative rather than expository. A central hypothesis will hold my attention. It is uncomfortably simple: copies and practices related to copying are foundational infrastructure in the humanities, digital or otherwise, as practiced in Korean studies (and elsewhere). That is, as the articles in this special section demonstrate, a great deal of what we do as Koreanists and humanists concerns copying. Learning, especially the kind we call deep, is formulated through interactions with and as a function of producing copies. A corollary to this hypothesis, one that I will take up briefly in my conclusion, is that bibliography, that old discipline which can never quite [End Page 300] decide if it is an art or a science, provides tools for counting and considering copies, as well as doing the generative work of copying and making people, places, and things count. Bibliography can help us to think about copies, how we count them and make them count, as well as how we use them to learn. If anything, my meditation suggests an attention to the material objects and processes that formulate some of the infrastructures that support our work as Koreanists and as humanists helps situate us in our community and among others. My hope is that this situational awareness will be useful as we collectively consider the tremendous contributions made by the authors presented in this volume, as well as the ways that we might support and extend their work. Korean Studies Benedict Anderson has made the case that nations can, at least in part, be understood as opportunities for individuals to imagine themselves as part of a community.1 He identifies a material mechanism that facilitates this kind of imaginative process: print capitalism, especially the production of newspapers. Implicit in Anderson's analysis is the idea that engagements with copies created with fidelity at regular intervals and at industrial scale can enable individuals to collectively imagine national communities. Korean studies, I've come to think, can be understood in a similar way, as an imagined community. Rather than daily newspapers, copies of journals like this one allow us to image a community of people who share an interest in the contested ideas and geographies that formulate and","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135957876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract: The urge to find the authentic original of a story seems to be a universal longing. Recently, narratologists like Barbara Herrnstein Smith, as well as experts for East Asian literatures like Michael Emmerich or Lena Henningsen, draw our attention away from the original—which is often unknowable—and instead towards the variants of a story. While this suggestion brings a breath of fresh air to the field of narrative studies, it also poses a fundamental problem. If a story does not necessarily exist as a static original, but is comprised of many variants, how should we then imagine the story itself? This paper proposes imagining the story not as a separate static unit, but rather as a story cloud that includes all variants and changes its form when new variants join, or old variants fall into oblivion. Just as it is much easier to take a picture of a static object than of a moving one, it is much easier to imagine a static text than a text in motion. The main aim of this paper is therefore to find ways to make story clouds more graspable through visualizations. Specifically, for this endeavor we will focus on one of the most popular story clouds in East Asia, The Journey to the West . Methodologically, we draw on the actant-relationship model that the computational folklorist Tim Tangherlini has developed in the article "Toward a Generative Model of Legend: Pizzas, Bridges, Vaccines, and Witches." We will apply Tangherlini's model to variants of The Journey to the West and use the data to visualize the story cloud, especially its actantial core.
{"title":"Stability in Variation: Visualizing the Actantial Core of The Journey to the West ,","authors":"Barbara Wall, Dong Myong Lee","doi":"10.1353/ks.2023.a908620","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2023.a908620","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: The urge to find the authentic original of a story seems to be a universal longing. Recently, narratologists like Barbara Herrnstein Smith, as well as experts for East Asian literatures like Michael Emmerich or Lena Henningsen, draw our attention away from the original—which is often unknowable—and instead towards the variants of a story. While this suggestion brings a breath of fresh air to the field of narrative studies, it also poses a fundamental problem. If a story does not necessarily exist as a static original, but is comprised of many variants, how should we then imagine the story itself? This paper proposes imagining the story not as a separate static unit, but rather as a story cloud that includes all variants and changes its form when new variants join, or old variants fall into oblivion. Just as it is much easier to take a picture of a static object than of a moving one, it is much easier to imagine a static text than a text in motion. The main aim of this paper is therefore to find ways to make story clouds more graspable through visualizations. Specifically, for this endeavor we will focus on one of the most popular story clouds in East Asia, The Journey to the West . Methodologically, we draw on the actant-relationship model that the computational folklorist Tim Tangherlini has developed in the article \"Toward a Generative Model of Legend: Pizzas, Bridges, Vaccines, and Witches.\" We will apply Tangherlini's model to variants of The Journey to the West and use the data to visualize the story cloud, especially its actantial core.","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135957862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Reviewed by: Turning Toward Edification: Foreigners in Chosŏn Korea by Adam Bohnet Yeseung Yun Turning Toward Edification: Foreigners in Chosŏn Korea, by Adam Bohnet. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2020. 284 pages. The discourse of homogeneity has been dominant in South Korean society for a long time. However, the increase in international marriages led South Korea to gradually transform into a multiracial society. This transformation means the emphasis on homogeneity in the national identity is losing its persuasive power. The Korean peninsula has already experienced an influx of foreigners since the premodern period. Chosŏn was no exception. In particular, the Chosŏn court agonized over how to treat aliens properly. Then, what brought foreigners to Chosŏn? How did the Chosŏn court classify them in terms of the social order? Adam Bohnet's Turning Toward Edification: Foreigners in Chosŏn Korea finds answers to those queries. Bohnet's monograph investigates the identity construction of foreigners concerning the centralization of Chosŏn Korea. Bohnet argues that Chosŏn Korea promoted foreigners' settlement through "edification" based on Confucianism. Above all, this book mainly focuses on the imperial subject, who migrated from the Ming empire during the Ming-Qing transition. According to Bohnet, the late Chosŏn identified itself as the new center of Chunghwa (Ch. Zhonghua/the central efflorescence) by improving the social status of imperial subjects, who were classified the same as other submitting foreigners before. Therefore, the Chosŏn court's [End Page 407] policy on constructing the identity of aliens shaped Chosŏn's national identity. The book consists of six chapters. First of all, chapter one elucidates foreigners' settlement in the Early Chosŏn period. Chosŏn monarchs labeled foreigners from Jurchen and Japan as submitting-foreigner status (hyanghwain). By labeling hyanghwain, the Chosŏn court encouraged Jurchens and Japanese people to adjust to the Chosŏn society well. In chapter two, the author explains demographic transformation post-Imjin war. The author proves a significant influx of aliens after the Imjin war. Chapter three showcases that Jurchens and Liaodongese fled to the Korean peninsula during the conflicts between later Jin and Southern Ming. In chapter four, Bohnet analyzes the settlements of migrants after the warfare. Even though an influx of foreigners ceased, a submitting-foreigners status was maintained within the administrative system. Chapter five explains that as late Chosŏn set its identity as the last remaining bastion of the Chunghwa legitimacy, and the status of Ming migrants also changed. In chapter six, the author indicates imperial subjects (hwangjoin) set their identity as the descendants of the Ming loyalists by recording their loyalism toward ancestors in biographies. Bohnet's Turning Toward Edification interweaves the four branches of genres: foreign relations history, social history, intellectual h
{"title":"Turning Toward Edification: Foreigners in Chosŏn Korea by Adam Bohnet (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/ks.2023.a908630","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2023.a908630","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Turning Toward Edification: Foreigners in Chosŏn Korea by Adam Bohnet Yeseung Yun Turning Toward Edification: Foreigners in Chosŏn Korea, by Adam Bohnet. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2020. 284 pages. The discourse of homogeneity has been dominant in South Korean society for a long time. However, the increase in international marriages led South Korea to gradually transform into a multiracial society. This transformation means the emphasis on homogeneity in the national identity is losing its persuasive power. The Korean peninsula has already experienced an influx of foreigners since the premodern period. Chosŏn was no exception. In particular, the Chosŏn court agonized over how to treat aliens properly. Then, what brought foreigners to Chosŏn? How did the Chosŏn court classify them in terms of the social order? Adam Bohnet's Turning Toward Edification: Foreigners in Chosŏn Korea finds answers to those queries. Bohnet's monograph investigates the identity construction of foreigners concerning the centralization of Chosŏn Korea. Bohnet argues that Chosŏn Korea promoted foreigners' settlement through \"edification\" based on Confucianism. Above all, this book mainly focuses on the imperial subject, who migrated from the Ming empire during the Ming-Qing transition. According to Bohnet, the late Chosŏn identified itself as the new center of Chunghwa (Ch. Zhonghua/the central efflorescence) by improving the social status of imperial subjects, who were classified the same as other submitting foreigners before. Therefore, the Chosŏn court's [End Page 407] policy on constructing the identity of aliens shaped Chosŏn's national identity. The book consists of six chapters. First of all, chapter one elucidates foreigners' settlement in the Early Chosŏn period. Chosŏn monarchs labeled foreigners from Jurchen and Japan as submitting-foreigner status (hyanghwain). By labeling hyanghwain, the Chosŏn court encouraged Jurchens and Japanese people to adjust to the Chosŏn society well. In chapter two, the author explains demographic transformation post-Imjin war. The author proves a significant influx of aliens after the Imjin war. Chapter three showcases that Jurchens and Liaodongese fled to the Korean peninsula during the conflicts between later Jin and Southern Ming. In chapter four, Bohnet analyzes the settlements of migrants after the warfare. Even though an influx of foreigners ceased, a submitting-foreigners status was maintained within the administrative system. Chapter five explains that as late Chosŏn set its identity as the last remaining bastion of the Chunghwa legitimacy, and the status of Ming migrants also changed. In chapter six, the author indicates imperial subjects (hwangjoin) set their identity as the descendants of the Ming loyalists by recording their loyalism toward ancestors in biographies. Bohnet's Turning Toward Edification interweaves the four branches of genres: foreign relations history, social history, intellectual h","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135957687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Veli-Matti Karhulahti, Katriina Heljakka, Dongwon Jo
Abstract: The claw crane—an arcade game that invites its players to remotely grab a prize with a "claw"—has undergone a long process of development from an eye-catching "steam shovel" to a calculated gambling machine across amusement arcades, train stations, and traveling carnivals. Recently, the claw crane has become a common transmedia object in various consumer outlets around the world, serving today's "kidults" who are willing to play and be playful with toys as grownups. Especially in South Korea, the claw crane now rewards its players with cutified character plushies, which arguably reflects and resonates with the local sociocultural conventions. In this mixed-methods study, we deconstruct the claw crane as a historical artifact that promotes diverse forms of human interaction and engagement in the techno-cultural and social context of South Korea. The claw crane (or in South Korea, rather the "toy crane") is investigated by means of historical design analysis, a review of contemporary South Korean media texts, and field observations in Seoul. We suggest the claw crane to serve as a multipurpose medium for playful interactions beyond the act of play itself—and in South Korea, having become a means for playful courting and emotional support, which at times of anxiety, stress, and uncertainty may contribute to one's confidence and belief in the future.
{"title":"From Claw Crane to Toy Crane: Catching, Courting, and Gambling in South Korea","authors":"Veli-Matti Karhulahti, Katriina Heljakka, Dongwon Jo","doi":"10.1353/ks.2023.a908627","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2023.a908627","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: The claw crane—an arcade game that invites its players to remotely grab a prize with a \"claw\"—has undergone a long process of development from an eye-catching \"steam shovel\" to a calculated gambling machine across amusement arcades, train stations, and traveling carnivals. Recently, the claw crane has become a common transmedia object in various consumer outlets around the world, serving today's \"kidults\" who are willing to play and be playful with toys as grownups. Especially in South Korea, the claw crane now rewards its players with cutified character plushies, which arguably reflects and resonates with the local sociocultural conventions. In this mixed-methods study, we deconstruct the claw crane as a historical artifact that promotes diverse forms of human interaction and engagement in the techno-cultural and social context of South Korea. The claw crane (or in South Korea, rather the \"toy crane\") is investigated by means of historical design analysis, a review of contemporary South Korean media texts, and field observations in Seoul. We suggest the claw crane to serve as a multipurpose medium for playful interactions beyond the act of play itself—and in South Korea, having become a means for playful courting and emotional support, which at times of anxiety, stress, and uncertainty may contribute to one's confidence and belief in the future.","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135957691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Introduction to Special Section Digital Korean Studies Javier Cha (bio) and Barbara Wall (bio) Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, academic research on Korea was able to continue in large part due to the extraordinary collection of online repositories and virtual meeting platforms. This heightened awareness prompts us to consider the relationship between digital technology and our desire to deepen our understanding of Korea's history, society, and culture. The origins of digital Korean studies can be traced back to the launch of the Munkwa Project in the 1960s, making Edward Wagner and Song June-ho [Song Chunho] two of the earliest practitioners of humanities computing. Today, Koreanists are among the most privileged users of digital resources. Thanks to the trailblazing work of Kim Hyeon [Kim Hyŏn], Yi Unggŭn, and others in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as the post-1998 creation of large-scale digitized collections, our research typically begins with online queries rather than trips to physical libraries and archives. Furthermore, the Korean Open Government License legislation mandates unrestricted access to raw data sets created with public funds. While premodern Korea specialists have been the primary beneficiaries thus far, the digital transformation of modern Korean studies is well underway, starting with materials that are no longer under copyright protection. [End Page 1] This special section showcases the diverse ways of leveraging digital or computational methods in Korean studies and provides glimpses of how the digital turn may unfold in the coming decades. To prepare for this, the guest editors organized a two-part event at Seoul National University and the University of Copenhagen in May and June 2022, respectively.1 The May incubation program gathered the next generation of digital Koreanists to serve as a venue for idea exchange, hands-on training, and networking opportunities. A selective group of early-career and senior academics developed their own digital projects with the mentoring of some of the leading digital humanities experts from South Korea and around the world. The follow-up event in June held the publication workshop for this special section and invited the participants in the May incubation program to share the results of their pilot research in order to receive feedback and foster the growth of digital Korean studies in a cooperative and collaborative manner. Korean studies and digital technologies may intersect in two major ways. The first and most common approach involves data-driven or machine-assisted analytic methods enabled by the digitization of source materials. Depending on the level of digitization, the researcher may need to begin with document scanning and creating digital editions. Because digitized and open-access materials are widely available, digital Koreanists rarely have to deal with optical character recognition or the licensing of commercial databases. For this reason, the majority of contributors to
{"title":"Introduction to Special Section Digital Korean Studies","authors":"Javier Cha, Barbara Wall","doi":"10.1353/ks.2023.a908615","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2023.a908615","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction to Special Section Digital Korean Studies Javier Cha (bio) and Barbara Wall (bio) Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, academic research on Korea was able to continue in large part due to the extraordinary collection of online repositories and virtual meeting platforms. This heightened awareness prompts us to consider the relationship between digital technology and our desire to deepen our understanding of Korea's history, society, and culture. The origins of digital Korean studies can be traced back to the launch of the Munkwa Project in the 1960s, making Edward Wagner and Song June-ho [Song Chunho] two of the earliest practitioners of humanities computing. Today, Koreanists are among the most privileged users of digital resources. Thanks to the trailblazing work of Kim Hyeon [Kim Hyŏn], Yi Unggŭn, and others in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as the post-1998 creation of large-scale digitized collections, our research typically begins with online queries rather than trips to physical libraries and archives. Furthermore, the Korean Open Government License legislation mandates unrestricted access to raw data sets created with public funds. While premodern Korea specialists have been the primary beneficiaries thus far, the digital transformation of modern Korean studies is well underway, starting with materials that are no longer under copyright protection. [End Page 1] This special section showcases the diverse ways of leveraging digital or computational methods in Korean studies and provides glimpses of how the digital turn may unfold in the coming decades. To prepare for this, the guest editors organized a two-part event at Seoul National University and the University of Copenhagen in May and June 2022, respectively.1 The May incubation program gathered the next generation of digital Koreanists to serve as a venue for idea exchange, hands-on training, and networking opportunities. A selective group of early-career and senior academics developed their own digital projects with the mentoring of some of the leading digital humanities experts from South Korea and around the world. The follow-up event in June held the publication workshop for this special section and invited the participants in the May incubation program to share the results of their pilot research in order to receive feedback and foster the growth of digital Korean studies in a cooperative and collaborative manner. Korean studies and digital technologies may intersect in two major ways. The first and most common approach involves data-driven or machine-assisted analytic methods enabled by the digitization of source materials. Depending on the level of digitization, the researcher may need to begin with document scanning and creating digital editions. Because digitized and open-access materials are widely available, digital Koreanists rarely have to deal with optical character recognition or the licensing of commercial databases. For this reason, the majority of contributors to ","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":"111 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135957869","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract: This article discusses the perspectives of three parties: the Korean embassy officials dispatched from the Chosŏn court (1392–1910), the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1868), and the imperial court in Kyoto. Immediately after establishing the military government in 1603, the Tokugawa shogunate attempted to consolidate its own military foundation and complete the unification of the country. During this process, inviting the Korean embassy to the Tokugawa shogunate was one of the most important events undertaken by the shogunate, demonstrating to other samurai families that the Tokugawa house was the strongest political authority in the country. Under the Tokugawa regime, the imperial court played a nominal role without political influence. Nonetheless, the shogunate may have considered the imperial court as a latent threat. The members of the imperial family were willing to engage with the Korean embassy for further cultural exchange. In the travelogues to Japan, the officials of the Korean embassy recorded their concerns on the relationship between the imperial court and the shogunate. Their analysis of the matter mentioned the ambiguity of the neighborly relations in the future if the emperor were to recapture political power and thus alarmed whether the new ruler would have maintained amicable relations with Chosŏn. This research focuses on how Korean embassy officials viewed the imperial court, and also the shogunate's reaction to communication between the embassy officials and members of the imperial family who were interested in both the embassy officials and Korean culture.
{"title":"Intrigues for Power: The Tokugawa Shogunate, the Japanese Court, and the Korean Embassy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries","authors":"Jeong-Mi Lee","doi":"10.1353/ks.2023.a908628","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2023.a908628","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This article discusses the perspectives of three parties: the Korean embassy officials dispatched from the Chosŏn court (1392–1910), the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1868), and the imperial court in Kyoto. Immediately after establishing the military government in 1603, the Tokugawa shogunate attempted to consolidate its own military foundation and complete the unification of the country. During this process, inviting the Korean embassy to the Tokugawa shogunate was one of the most important events undertaken by the shogunate, demonstrating to other samurai families that the Tokugawa house was the strongest political authority in the country. Under the Tokugawa regime, the imperial court played a nominal role without political influence. Nonetheless, the shogunate may have considered the imperial court as a latent threat. The members of the imperial family were willing to engage with the Korean embassy for further cultural exchange. In the travelogues to Japan, the officials of the Korean embassy recorded their concerns on the relationship between the imperial court and the shogunate. Their analysis of the matter mentioned the ambiguity of the neighborly relations in the future if the emperor were to recapture political power and thus alarmed whether the new ruler would have maintained amicable relations with Chosŏn. This research focuses on how Korean embassy officials viewed the imperial court, and also the shogunate's reaction to communication between the embassy officials and members of the imperial family who were interested in both the embassy officials and Korean culture.","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":"299 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135957680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract: This article introduces Korean gay space, place, and identity in Japan, as revealed in Tokyo's Korean gay bars that emerged at the start of Japan's Korean Wave in the 2000s. It focuses on the intersections of race and sexuality in interactions among the actors that produce and consume these establishments, exposing racialized spaces of desire besides those limited to white Westernness. It presents an overview of Korean gay identity against the backdrop of Koreaphobia in Japan and homophobia among zainichi , along with an examination of the Korean Wave, its impact on the queer diaspora, and the gay commodification of Koreanness. The study comparatively analyzes racial groupings in the bar, seeking clarity on the representations of self and other among gay Koreans and with gay Japanese. A series of conclusions are made: (1) Korean gay men's experience in Japan is shaped by having to contend with separate closets for race and sexuality, compounded by racism and homophobia from within their own communities dissociated from "Japan." (2) The Korean Wave has created a new category of desire among gay men through a middle ground or third space around a borderless, hybridized community of communities. (3) Korean gay bars simultaneously function as consumer spaces for what the author terms "proximate opposites" with Japanese, and as community centers for racially one yet ideologically divided Koreans. The study sets out to recover and preserve a history that would otherwise have been lost from memory with decades of scholarly inattention to its existence.
{"title":"Riding the Wave to Ni-Chōme: Tokyo's Korean Gay Bars in the 2000s","authors":"Albert Graves","doi":"10.1353/ks.2023.a908629","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2023.a908629","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This article introduces Korean gay space, place, and identity in Japan, as revealed in Tokyo's Korean gay bars that emerged at the start of Japan's Korean Wave in the 2000s. It focuses on the intersections of race and sexuality in interactions among the actors that produce and consume these establishments, exposing racialized spaces of desire besides those limited to white Westernness. It presents an overview of Korean gay identity against the backdrop of Koreaphobia in Japan and homophobia among zainichi , along with an examination of the Korean Wave, its impact on the queer diaspora, and the gay commodification of Koreanness. The study comparatively analyzes racial groupings in the bar, seeking clarity on the representations of self and other among gay Koreans and with gay Japanese. A series of conclusions are made: (1) Korean gay men's experience in Japan is shaped by having to contend with separate closets for race and sexuality, compounded by racism and homophobia from within their own communities dissociated from \"Japan.\" (2) The Korean Wave has created a new category of desire among gay men through a middle ground or third space around a borderless, hybridized community of communities. (3) Korean gay bars simultaneously function as consumer spaces for what the author terms \"proximate opposites\" with Japanese, and as community centers for racially one yet ideologically divided Koreans. The study sets out to recover and preserve a history that would otherwise have been lost from memory with decades of scholarly inattention to its existence.","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135958078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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