Showing papers in "The Journal of Korean Studies in 2011"
TL;DR: The South Koreans in the Debt Crisis as mentioned in this paper examines the logic underlying the neoliberal welfare state that South Korea created in response to the devastating Asian Debt Crisis (1997-2001), arguing that while the government proclaimed that it would guarantee all South Koreans a minimum standard of living, it prioritized assisting those citizens perceived as embodying the neoliberal ideals of employability, flexibility, and self-sufficiency.
Abstract: South Koreans in the Debt Crisis is a detailed examination of the logic underlying the neoliberal welfare state that South Korea created in response to the devastating Asian Debt Crisis (1997–2001). Jesook Song argues that while the government proclaimed that it would guarantee all South Koreans a minimum standard of living, it prioritized assisting those citizens perceived as embodying the neoliberal ideals of employability, flexibility, and self-sufficiency. Song demonstrates that the government was not alone in drawing distinctions between the “deserving” and the “undeserving” poor. Progressive intellectuals, activists, and organizations also participated in the neoliberal reform project. Song traces the circulation of neoliberal concepts throughout South Korean society, among government officials, the media, intellectuals, NGO members, and educated underemployed people working in public works programs. She analyzes the embrace of partnerships between NGOs and the government, the frequent invocation of a pervasive decline in family values, the resurrection of conservative gender norms and practices, and the promotion of entrepreneurship as the key to survival.
Drawing on her experience during the crisis as an employee in a public works program in Seoul, Song provides an ethnographic assessment of the efforts of the state and civilians to regulate social insecurity, instability, and inequality through assistance programs. She focuses specifically on efforts to help two populations deemed worthy of state subsidies: the “IMF homeless,” people temporarily homeless but considered employable, and the “new intellectuals,” young adults who had become professionally redundant during the crisis but had the high-tech skills necessary to lead a transformed post-crisis South Korea.
108 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines a shift in the newspaper discourse on South Korean pre-col- lege study abroad (chogi yuhak) in order to consider how South Koreans are managing the considerable social pressure to globalize their children.
Abstract: This essay examines a shift in the newspaper discourse on South Korean pre-col- lege study abroad (chogi yuhak)—the education exodus of pre-college students— in order to consider how South Koreans are managing the considerable social pressure to globalize their children. While in the early years of Pre-College Study Abroad (PSA) in the 1990s, there was a robust media discourse about the promise of alternative human development through PSA, as the phenomena grew dramatically into the 2000s, the discourse increasingly asserts that PSA success relies on techni- cal preparation at home, the student's pre-existing character, and parental assets. PSA has thus been "domesticated" in that it is understood not as a discrete educa- tion field abroad, but instead an extension of South Korea's highly stratified and competitive education market. This shift reflects escalating social and economic anxieties, and as such, the discourse constitutes a conversation about inequality in contemporary South Korea.
101 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a trajectory of the South Korean cinema from its contentious emergence to its current global dissemination is examined, comparing the cinematic instances of the pre-colonial Great Han Empire (1897-1910) and contemporary post-colonial Republic of Korea (1948-present) and the negotiations between the national and the transnational, which have run from the catastrophic and the cartographical as South Korea maintains a state of emergency.
Abstract: This article takes a look at a trajectory of the South Korean cinema from its contentious emergence to its current global dissemination. The cinematic instances of the pre-colonial Great Han Empire (1897–1910) and contemporary post-colonial Republic of Korea (1948–present) will be compared and the negotiations between the national and the transnational, which have run from the catastrophic and the cartographical as South Korea maintains a state of emergency, will be discussed. This discourse is also a way in which we can revisit the scenes of the IMF crisis, arguably bear similarities to the shock experienced during the Great Han Empire, is cited as evidence of the threats that “big countries” such as China and America could pose to unification.
23 citations
TL;DR: Chung Chang Wha is the godfather of Korean action cinema and the director who internationalized Hong Kong action cinema when Five Fingers of Death (天下第一拳 C. Tian xia di yi quan, King Boxer, K. Chugm ŭm tasŏt sonkarak, 1972) became a $12 million global box office sensation as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Chung Chang Wha is the godfather of Korean action cinema and the director who internationalized Hong Kong action cinema when Five Fingers of Death (天下第一拳 C. Tian xia di yi quan, King Boxer, K. Chugŭm ŭi tasŏt sonkarak, 1972) became a $12 million global box office sensation. Chung delivered on his xia ethos promise to Hong Kong cinema mogul Sir Run Run Shaw to get the job done, no matter what. Despite Chung's stellar achievement, his rightful status within the annals of film history for both Korea and Hong Kong is compromised due to the practice of ethnonational film historiography. This project rescues Chung's historical preeminence by focusing on his transnational contributions to global film history.
16 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that North Korea's political power is not a projection of Confucian culture, but that the reverse is true, and they explore how North Korean political elites have used confucianism in order to legitimate their political power.
Abstract: In this article, I challenge the existing cultural approach that assumes a virtual Confucian transformation in North Korea. We can understand North Korea's modern revival of Chosŏn Confucianism as an ideological phenomenon, created by political elites who reinvent and manipulate forms of Confucianism to legiti- mate their domination. The image of the so-called family-state, for which the cul- tural approach has argued, actually comes from the regime's political discourses. I focus on how North Korea has systemized and transformed its ruling idea, the Chuch'e ideology, through its uses of Confucianism. Kim Jong Il's ideas of socio- political life and loyalty and filial piety (ch'ung-hyo) are a reinterpretation of Chuch'e ideology and are reflected in the regime's extreme political discourses. I argue that North Korea's political power is not a projection of Confucian culture, but that the reverse is true. Based upon this fundamental claim, I explore how North Korean political elites have used Confucianism in order to legitimate their political power and how modern discursive uses of Confucianism in politics have reinterpreted Chuch'e ideology. In this article, I challenge the existing cultural approach that has assumed a virtual Confucian transformation going beyond political discourses and rep- resentations of Confucianism in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). This cultural approach has defined the DPRK as a "family-state" 1 in terms of a revival of (neo-) Confucianism. 2 However, this modern Confucian revival requires more careful observation and analysis. Recent scholarly debate on "Confucian capitalism" in South Korea raises the question: What is Con-
12 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that National Cinema has lasting significance as a concept and needs to be retooled as an analytic paradigm for cultural self-making/becoming, which involves institutional, economic, and discursive negotiations/struggles to determine what has to be done to afford cinematic cultures critical to socio-cultural life in a national society.
Abstract: The notion of National Cinema has been under fierce attack. It was once a dominant paradigm during the heyday of the nation-state but now is a marker of obsolescence. In this essay I first critique those who forsake the concept of National Cinema by examining the following questions: Is National Cinema a conceptual and institutional by-product of Hollywood domination? How is National Cinema correlated with cultural identity and uniqueness? Should National Cinema be supplanted by a fashionable neologism, transnational cinema? I argue that National Cinema has lasting significance as a concept and needs to be retooled as an analytic paradigm for cultural self-making/becoming, which involves institutional, economic, and discursive negotiations/struggles to determine what has to be done to afford cinematic cultures critical to socio-cultural life in a national society.
11 citations
TL;DR: For example, this paper pointed out that the anti-Korean attitudes harbored by Japanese residents in Korea and the discriminative practices evident in Japanese administrative policies neutralized efforts by those Japanese and Koreans who accepted Japan's colonial rhetoric and strove to advance this new relationship.
Abstract: With the August 1910 annexation of Korea, the Japanese initiated efforts to redefine their relationship with their new colonial subjects. To this end Seoul’s trilingual media served as an indispensible agency to inform the peninsula’s residents of Japan’s colonial policy and to suggest ways for its development. From the start the Japanese administration clearly advertised its policy as assimilation and used the media to market a new Japanese-Korean relationship to the residents of the peninsula. The messages that appeared in these presses varied and even contradicted each other. Articles carried in the English-language Seoul Press often advertised the Japanese-Korean relationship as amicable and predicted that the two people’s assimilation would be accomplished with relative ease. The Koreanlanguage Maeil sinbo emphasized the changes that Koreans would have to make to attain a level of civilization that qualified them as Japanese imperial subjects. Contrary to the English-language press, it saw assimilation’s success emerging after the people engaged in a long, gradual effort to modernize. Finally, the Japanese-language Keijō shinpō , also aware of the difficulties that historically accompanied assimilation efforts, warned that for assimilation to have a chance at success the Japanese settler would have to adopt a positive image of the Korean people and a cooperative stance toward Japanese administrative efforts. The contradictions found in these messages accented a fundamental problem that Japan’s assimilation policy would face in Korea: the anti-Korean attitudes harbored by Japanese residents in Korea and the discriminative practices evident in Japanese administrative policies neutralized efforts by those Japanese and Koreans who accepted Japan’s colonial rhetoric and strove to advance this new relationship.
9 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a new model, timing, and interpretation of the major changes in the South Korean paradigm of North Korean propaganda in 1945-2010 is proposed, based on the investigation of various textual and visual materi- als published in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), related Inter- net resources, as well as North Korean films.
Abstract: During the sixty years of the separate existence of two Koreas, North Korean pro- pagandists have managed to continually readjust the image of the Republic of Korea (ROK) to the challenges of reality by employing different methods and techniques. This article outlines the changing perspectives on South Korea in North Korean propaganda in 1945-2010 and correlates them with Korean cultural traditions, as well as old and new foreign influences and tendencies in the world's intellectual trends. In so doing, I propose a new model, timing, and interpretation of the major changes in the South Korean paradigm of North Korean propaganda in 1945-2010 and base my conclusions on the investigation of various textual and visual materi- als published in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), related Inter- net resources, as well as North Korean films.
7 citations
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3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine three of the perhaps most important films in Im Kwon-Taek's career, Chokpo ( Genealogy, 1978), Sŏp’yŏnje (1993), and Ch’wihwas�n (Painted Fire, 2002), with the emphasis on three male protagonists: Tani, Yubong, and Chang Sŭng-p, respectively.
Abstract: This essay proposes to examine three of the perhaps most important films in Im Kwon-Taek’s career, Chokpo ( Genealogy, 1978), Sŏp’yŏnje (1993), and Ch’wihwasŏn (Painted Fire , 2002) with the emphasis on three male protagonists: Tani, Yubong, and Chang Sŭngŏp, respectively. This essay explores how the symbolic and physical deaths these three characters suffer in these films, and how Im Kwon-Taek, through these quintessential male protagonists, seeks to constitute his unique national subject. In an attempt to articulate that the national subject cultivated by Im Kwon-Taek must be perceived as a relational term that constantly refers and defers to the presence of the national other, the main theoretical framework draws from Foucault’s concept of “crisis heterotopia.” This essay begins with a discussion on a Japanese character, Tani, the earliest form of national subject in Im Kwon-Taek’s 1978 film Chokpo , an adaptation from Kajiyama Toshiyuki’s short story “ Zokufu ,” set in the late colonial period when Japan urged Korea to abandon its own identity and instead adopt Japanese names, language, and values. I propose that the nascent form of Im Kwon-Taek’s nation-ness already had its transnational roots that are not only embedded in the complicated condition of naisen ittai (squashing of the two bodies of Korea and Japan into one), but also the combined effort by Japanese and Koreans to self-reflexively come to terms with their scarred pasts. The lamentation of the vanishing Korean identity surely is one of the themes continually projected in Im’s works since the late 1970s—of course Sŏp’yŏnje and Ch’wihwasŏn being prime examples among many—but this melancholic minjok, this essay insists, must be registered as a fulfillment of a modest, averted, and even transnational gaze of the camera in order for Im to create new cinematic language of a post-traumatic nation since the late 1970s.
TL;DR: In this paper, the identity and historical context of an enigmatic image from Pulgok, a religious site on Mount Nam from the Silla period in Korea, is examined in an attempt to focus on the latter's role as an integral part of the entire representational scheme.
Abstract: This paper examines the identity and historical context of an enigmatic image from Pulgok, a religious site on Mount Nam from the Silla period in Korea. It examines both the image and its frame, a cave-shaped niche, in an attempt to focus on the latter’s role as an integral part of the entire representational scheme. The Pulgok image, rendered in a fashion unique among works of Korean Buddhist art, reflects the idea of meditation inside a cave, a revered practice with a long history in Buddhist circles, and is related to the depiction of the Awakened as a keeper and transmitter of the Buddha’s teaching.
TL;DR: The authors analyzes what factors determined the status of movie narrators in the silent film era and explores to what extent narrators would have been able to claim authority in the position of both pop star and colonial subject and argues that power effectively relies on the perceived value of the assets one commands.
Abstract: In Korea, movie narrators enjoyed the admiration of people across class and cultural differences based on their ability to guide audiences through the many novel, foreign images on screen. But despite the prestige of the narrators’ profession, it was a demanding one. They had to deftly maneuver between what would entertain and be appropriate for the people of various social classes and cultural backgrounds, while also complying with the demands of public scrutiny and the many regulations regarding public order. Although it has been suggested that the narrators had some authority on matters related to modernity, it is unlikely that they were ever able to rely on that to escape the reality of the sociopolitical status quo. This article analyzes what factors determined the status of movie narrators in the silent film era. It explores to what extent narrators would have been able to claim authority in the position of both pop star and colonial subject and argues that power effectively relies on the perceived value of the assets one commands.
TL;DR: The project to preserve Korean films made spectacular gains in the past decade with the "unearthing" of prints produced in the latter half of the colonial period as discussed by the authors, and the project is not conducted without consciousness of the complexities of national identity and cultural sovereignty.
Abstract: The project to preserve Korean films made spectacular gains in the past decade with the "unearthing" of prints produced in the latter half of the colonial period. This repatriation mission collects materials in the name of the truth of history and the cultural genealogy of the nation. It traverses borders, laying claim to films housed in other national archives and private collections. The logic of the archive, like that of the nation, coordinates inclusive and expansionist drives with exclu- sive and restrictive discipline. The project is not conducted without consciousness of the complexities of national identity and cultural sovereignty. This paper aims toward a more sustained critique of those challenges, thinking seriously about the techniques deployed in the construction of national film history. It also seeks to supplement that line of inquiry by posing another set of questions about visibility and the archive itself: What are the processes by which films become visible as Korean? How does their visibility inflect their authority as historical records? How does the visibility of newly found films inflect the way we read particular films and the era of their production? In what ways do they prompt us to reconceptualize the idea of national cinema?
TL;DR: A parallel corpus that can be constructed by this method of data-based translation may be used in teaching a way of composing sentences that are relevant to the domain of financial news and in laying a foundation for statistical machine translation of that type of news.
Abstract: This paper shows how to translate English financial news into Korean appropriately on the basis of both the corpus of English financial news and that of Korean financial news. Technical words, phrases, and linguistic constructions that occur typically in English financial news are translated into Korean through consultation of the words and expressions that are really used in Korean financial news. For example, technical or typical English expressions and diverse English verbs that convey fluctuating financial situations are translated into Korean based on the search of their corresponding ones in the corpus of Korean financial news. This data-based translation makes it possible to obtain a translation output that is natural and free from the problem of translationese. Furthermore, a parallel corpus that can be constructed by this method of data-based translation may be used in teaching a way of composing sentences that are relevant to the domain of financial news and in laying a foundation for statistical machine translation of that type of news.