Contemporary Korean Society and Culture

No matter whether it comes by divine wrath, nuclear war, climate change, zombies, a pandemic or by machines rebellion: the apocalypse will be urban. Cities are at the same time the most complex and valuable creation of our civilization, but also one of the most vulnerable environments to inhabit during an apocalyptic crisis. However, can they also be the key to our salvation? Either a fictional or part-real apocalypse, the delirium of destination has been a constant in many societies, but nature does not negotiate and with more than 50% of the world population living in cities, the current pandemic located them as main subjects in a real-time experiment of values collapse. What made some cities so resilient while others suffered the most impact? Just within weeks, South Korea shifted the world’s attention from its Parasite (2019) film’s satirical criticism on urban social inequality, to detecting its first COVID-19 infection and soon becoming the most affected territory outside China, to end up as one of the top success references on how to confront a crisis of this magnitude especially through the use of urban infrastructures, smart systems and efficient governance tools. But Korean cities were not new to the idea of fighting a ―world-ender‖ enemy; from the North Korean war threat, to natural disaster stories such as Haeundae (2009), infection chaos in Gamgi (2013), to zombies invasion on Train to Busan (2016), Kingdom (2019), and Peninsula (2020), the increasing trend on catastrophic narratives has evolved though Korean culture beyond just entertainment, to become an open source to explore human reactions under extreme circumstances, our capabilities and reasons to survive. This presentation aims to explore the Korean vision on apocalypses and how its cities may have a valuable approach for planning our new world especially in the fight against inequality

Once viewed as an embarrassing superstition, the theatrical religious performances of Korean shamans—who communicate with the dead, divine the future, and become possessed—are going mainstream. Attitudes toward Korean shamanism are changing as shamanic traditions appear in staged rituals, museums, films, and television programs, as well as on the internet.

Contemporary Korean Shamanism explores this vernacular religion and practice, which includes sensory rituals using laden altars, ecstatic dance, and animal sacrifice, within South Korea's hypertechnologized society, where over 200,000 shamans are listed in professional organizations. Liora Sarfati reveals how representations of shamanism in national, commercialized, and screen-mediated settings have transformed opinions of these religious practitioners and their rituals.

Applying ethnography and folklore research, Contemporary Korean Shamanism maps this shift in perception about shamanism—from a sign of a backward, undeveloped Korea to a valuable, indigenous cultural asset.
https://iupress.org/9780253057174/contemporary-korean-shamanism/

Da un anno a questa parte le relazioni fra Giappone e Corea del Sud sono ai minimi storici. Le divergenze fra i governi giapponese e coreano intorno a una sentenza della Corte Suprema della Corea sono degenerate in una spirale di ritorsioni economiche e diplomatiche fra i due paesi. La materia del contendere riguarda un tema da sempre delicato: le responsabilità del Giappone nei confronti della Corea in qualità di ex colonizzatore. Una pagina nella storia dei rapporti fra i due paesi che il Giappone vorrebbe considerare archiviata, e per la quale invece una parte consistente dell'opinione pubblica coreana continua a chiedere un gesto di espiazione. D La mancata collaborazione fra i due paesi rischia di avere serie ripercussioni sugli equilibri dell'intera regione, perché, in qualità di alleati degli Stati Uniti ospitanti basi militari americane, hanno ruoli chiave nella strategia statunitense di contenimento di Cina e Corea del Nord.

Cardinal  John  Henry  Newman’s Idea of a University remains a truly profound and inspirational text that resonates down from its first publication in the  Nineteenth  Century  to  the  present  day.  It  should  be  acknowledged  as one of the greatest treatments of this crucial subject: the nature and purpose of  Higher  Education.  Our  modest  aim  is  to  articulate  a  brief  argument  that draws  out  Newman’s  extraordinarily  valuable  legacy  for  us  as  modern  university educators in the Christian tradition here in East Asia. The article focuses on an exploration of the vital emphasis of Newman on a truly holistic community  of  learning,  which  he  had  first  encountered  in  his  College  at Oxford University. This vision of the University as built upon its Professors’ vocation  of  pastoral  responsibility  towards  our  students  can  be  seen  as  in-forming  the  founding  mission  of  Underwood  International  College as a Liberal Arts institution and the new Residential College system  that  have been  established  at  Yonsei  University.  The  detailed  historical discussion  of Newman’s  arguments  thus  aims  to  highlight  their  continued  contemporary relevance. The article considers how we can apply to today’s Christian University  and  the  increasingly  multicultural  and  global  Korean society in which it is embedded Newman’s great and insightful vision of our mission as educators to seek and proclaim Truth. Key Words: Liberal Arts, Truth, Newman, Oxford, Yonsei University Underwood International College.
존 헨리 뉴먼 추기경의 통찰력 있는 저서 󰡔대학의 이념󰡕은 처음 출간되었
던 19세기부터 오늘날에 이르기까지 우리에게 많은 교훈을 주고 있다. 뉴먼
의 󰡔대학의 이념󰡕은 고등교육의 목적과 본질이라는 주제를 다루는 가장 훌
륭한 저서 중 하나로 인정받아 마땅하다. 대신 본 연구의 소박한 목적은
어떻게 뉴먼의 위대한 업적이 오늘날 동아시아에서 활약하고 있는 기독교
전통의 대학교육기관과 그 교육자들에게 영향을 미쳤는지를 풀어내고자 한
다. 본고는 뉴먼이 옥스퍼드 대학에서 처음 접한 이래 줄곧 강조해온 전인적
학문의 공동체라는 교육 사상을 약술하는 데 그 초점을 두고 있다. 뉴먼이
추구했던 대학의 이념과 그것이 근간으로 삼고 있는 교수들의 목회적 책임
에 대한 소명은 연세대학교가 설립한 언더우드국제대학의 사명인 인문학
중심의 교육과 기숙형 대학 시스템을 이해하는 데에도 유익하다. 뉴먼의
사상이 갖는 그 역사적 중요성에 대한 논의는 현대에도 뉴먼의 주장이 유의
미하다는 것을 재확인시켜 준다. 마지막으로 본 연구는 점차 글로벌해지는
다문화적 한국사회에서 뉴먼의 위대하고 통찰력 있는 사상을 어떻게 적용할
것이며, 진리를 추구하고 표명하는 교육자들의 사명과 그 목표에 도달하는
과정에서 그가 우리에게 던지는 시사점을 정리한다.
주제어: 인문학, 진리, 뉴먼, 옥스퍼드 대학교, 연세대학교, 언더우드국제
대학교

This is an inter-disciplinary course in which we will explore the culture and history of South Korea from its foundation myths to contemporary life. While dealing with the broad scope of Korea in the historical context, building on the key aspects of modern Korean culture (debates and controversies in the present), we will investigate major historical, political, economic and social moments that inform contemporary Korean identity from daily life, gender, civil society to K-Pop. Emphasis will be placed on envisioning and understanding Korea in a broad, multi-disciplinary way, as a way to help you better grasp how South Korea has arrived the present. No prior knowledge of Korea or the Korean language is expected.

The most prolific creatures on Earth. Over the ages, insects have aroused both disgust and fascination in human. Their ambiguous reception is a reason why they were and still are a subject or an inspiration for artworks. Painters, sculptures, weavers and others have depicted them: useful silkworms, beautiful butterflies, mysterious fireflies, ants, as well as intrusive flies, danger spiders, and the predatory praying mantis. The aim of this article is to present different approaches to the insect theme taken by contemporary Chinese, Korean, and Japanese artists. How do they see bugs? As little friends or intruders?

La Corée fascine de plus en plus de gens et les ouvrages sur ce pays se multiplient. Ils abondent souvent en lieux communs ou dressent le portrait d'un pays idéalisé. Ce pays, longtemps ignoré, est désormais connu pour ses conglomérats, tels les géants Samsung et Hyundai, mais aussi pour ses percées culturelles : son cinéma est à l'affiche des plus grands festivals et les tubes de la K-Pop font danser la jeunesse du globe. Toutefois, la Corée est aussi bien autre chose et cet ouvrage illustré vous dévoilera tout ce qu'il faut savoir de la culture coréenne passée et présente, au-delà des clichés. Ce livre est le fruit d'une rencontre entre deux français amoureux de la Corée : un anthropologue et une artiste. Ils ont puisé dans leurs expériences accumulées en vivant au Pays du Matin calme pour créer ce recueil. Dandys métrosexuels, beautés plastiques, monastères bouddhiques millénaires, rituels chamaniques, femmes quinquagénaires coiffées de visières panoramiques, wagons du métro bondés d'élèves maniaques de selfies… tous ces aspects de la vie quotidienne et bien d'autres de cette ancienne culture sont abordés dans ce livre. À travers ces 47 thématiques, vous allez découvrir l'essentiel de la Corée du XXI e siècle, des dernières tendances à la culture traditionnelle, des coutumes à l'art et à la religion. Tous ces thèmes rédigés par Benjamin Joinau sont illustrés par les croquis d'Elodie Dornand de Rouville qui a su capturer la vie quotidienne des Coréens sans oublier d'y ajouter un brin d'humour. « Découvrez en image tout ce qu'il faut savoir de la culture coréenne au-delà des clichés »

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This is an updated version of my essay back in 2013 about the Anti K-Pop phenomenon in Malaysia and Indonesia. The superficially welcomed K-Pop in both countries needs to view its unexplored territory of Anti K-Pop movement. This paper is in its evolving stages as it only limit on the online movement as seen in Facebook pages as well as several online news portal online in both countries. Malaysia and Indonesia is selected since these two countries have unique features that may differentiate themselves from similar Anti-K-Pop movement other countries since religion (in this case, Islam) and nationalism seemingly play an important role in solidifying the on-going and evolving Anti K-Pop movement.

Wpływy Korei Południowej od dłuższego czasu przenikają do masowej świadomości. Zajadamy się kimchi, słuchamy k-popu, zgłębiamy koreańskie praktyki kosmetyczne i z zapartym tchem oglądamy kolejne nagradzane filmy. Pod tą maską, którą sami Koreańczycy chcą pokazywać światu, znajdziemy jednak trudną historię i jeszcze trudniejszą współczesność.

Roman Husarski porzuca stereotypy i uproszczenia i podróżując po Korei, szuka informacji u źródeł. Opowieści, które słyszy, okazują się dużo ciekawsze niż misternie kreowany wizerunek. To państwo, w którym ludzie żyją najdłużej na świecie, wielkie bogactwo spotyka się ze skrajnym ubóstwem, religie konkurują ze sobą niczym firmy, a wojny toczą nie tylko partie, lecz także regiony, pokolenia oraz płcie. Husarski barwnie opowiada o meandrach koreańskiej polityki, skomplikowanych relacjach z Japonią i Koreą Północną, ale przede wszystkim rozmawia z ludźmi, którzy zmagają się z odpowiedzią na pytanie, czym jest dla nich koreańskość i jak połączyć wieloletnią tradycję ze współczesną moralnością. Z tych opowieści wyłania się wielowymiarowa, niejednoznaczna i niezwykle fascynująca Korea.

Kwestia podboju świata przez kulturę koreańską nie była nieunikniona, a jej historia nie wpisuje się wyłącznie w podniosłe narracje. Podwaliny hallyu zrodziły się w okresie zimnowojennych zmagań Korei, w wyniku rywalizacji wielkich firm i wśród polityków o jeszcze większym ego, w cieniu Korei Północnej. Mechanizmy, które doprowadziły do sukcesu marki "Korea", stworzyły rządy tyleż ambitne, co bezwzględne.

In the 2010s, a new phenomenon was spotted in the Seoul Metro. K-pop fans began adorning subway stations with large ads congratulating their heroes-so-called K-pop idols-on their birthdays and other anniversaries. Not only have these fandomproduced ads transformed the visual landscape of the Seoul Metro, they also invited novel spatial practices when fans, primarily young women, toured the ads to take photographs of and with them. Based on ethnographic observations, this article explores how fandom ads and fans visiting them make the Seoul Metro social and public in new ways. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre's theory of the production of space, the article frames fans' ads themselves and engagements they invite as assertions of the "right to the city," and relates them to spatial interventions that reclaim urban spaces based on symbolic-not legal-ownership, such as murals and graffiti. The article argues that K-pop idol ads recapture the Seoul Metro from domination by commercial advertisers' interests and appropriate it as a space of fandom, particularly female fandom. It also contends that this reorganization of space carries implications for a broader reclamation of subway surfaces as urban resources.

This paper argues that Kim Cho-yeop's science-fiction novel The Greenhouse at the End of the Earth (2020) reveals "trans-corporeal" material and ethical entanglement through its representation of a plant and a cyborg. The "mossvana" plant is genetically manufactured by a cyborg to resist and reduce the destructive effects of a human-induced environmental disaster. The plant is able to withstand the devastation of human-caused "dust," which decimates entire human, animal, and plant populations in the midtwenty-first century. In this post-apocalyptic novel, the plant emerges not only as the nexus of human and non-human agencies, but also as a figure for human ethical commitments toward non-human others. Through tracing recent trends in the environmental humanities and building on Stacy Alaimo's thesis of "trans-corporeality," this paper argues that this postpandemic novel reveals a new kind of ethics that fosters inter-species awareness and human-nonhuman connection. In the concluding section, I discuss air pollution in Korea and the metaphoric associations with breathing. I argue that breathing is also a "trans-corporeal" act that transports microscopic particles from the external environment into the human lungs and bloodstream. Breathing is a trans-corporeal act in both the material and ethical senses of the term.

Filipino, the national language of the Philippines, is used in other countries not just to promote the language and Philippine culture. This paper examines how the language is utilized in order to facilitate the mastery of the Korean language as well as the assimilation of marriage migrants into Korean society. The Republic of Korea has recently been shifting towards a multicultural society. This shift has given way to a government-sponsored multicultural policy, which seems flawed and has given birth to another social problem. According to Korean scholars Kim (2011), Watson (2010), and Lee (2015), the concept of multiculturalism is quite problematic because it promotes assimilation rather than the recognition of different cultures. This paper also aims to examine the dynamics of the politics of language in “multicultural” Korea by analyzing texts written in Filipino/Tagalog distributed by different Korean government agencies. These texts will be described, interpreted, and explaine...

What was once known as comic (books) have now been transformed into another crowd-pleasing Webtoon. Not many people now read comics by flipping the pages of their comic books. Instead, they are now scrolling up and down or sliding back and forth their smartphone screens to "turn' the pages of web-based comics knowns as webtoon--or at least this is what I noticed in Korea.

In this 'talk", I took out some examples of how webtoon has changed the way Koreans enjoy their past time or any other time, their commuting habits on public transportation--to name a few--by enjoying webtoon.

Koreans love webtoon so much to the point that the well-acclaimed and well-known Webtoon are turned into TV drama or moview. That being said, webtoon-based TV drama, movies, and even Broadway-like musicals in Korea have been on the rise---and I tried to re-tell this emerging phenomenon by compiling data from the news that I read in 2017. *Please note that this is not a paper, this is simply my thoughts and fact sharing upon reading webtoon-related articles on Korean newsfeeds.

This article discusses several documentary films since the 2010s that portray the place and landscape related to Korea’s social reality or a personal or collective memory of its past, classifying their common trope as the ‘audiovisual turn.’ The trope refers to the uses of the poetic and aesthetic techniques to highlight the visual and auditory qualities of the images that mediate the landscape or place. This article argues that the films’ experiments with these techniques mark formal and epistemological breaks with the expository and participatory modes of the traditional Korean activist documentary, as they create an array of Deleuzian time-images in which a social place or natural landscape is reconfigured as the cinematic space liberated from a linear time and layered with the imbrication of the present and the past. The images, however, are read as updating the activist documentary’s commitment to politics and history, as they renew the viewer’s sensory and affective awareness of the place and landscape and thereby render them to be ruins.

Some scholars have recently discussed the supposed failure of socialism in South Korea. By failure, they tend to refer to the low parliamentary representation of social-democratic parties in today's South Korea, as well as a high degree of working-class fragmentation. I argue here that the rhetoric of failure does not do justice to the entirety of socialist experience in post-division South Korea. It is undeniable, of course, that the degree of working-class self-representational capacity was greatly affected by both hard-core Cold War anti-communist policies and the neoliberal fragmentation of wage laborers into many divergent, sometimes even mutually antagonistic, groups. However, the noteworthy revival of autochthonous socialist politics and ideology in the 1980s, as well as socialist success in entering mainstream electoral politics in the 2000s, reveals the potential of political socialism in South Korea. Moreover, I argue that socialist/Marxist influence on South Korean intellectual paradigms and debates is significantly more pronounced than research suggests. Rather than a failure, socialism in South Korea represents a continuum of struggle. Socialism did not triumph on the Korean Peninsula in the twentieth century. However, the struggle continues, and constitutes perhaps the principally important part of Korea's modern and contemporary history.

This is another talk (in Indonesian Language) I share with my students and social circles about  the contemporary Korean society. As usual, I drew my talk based on the news that I have been reading.

Initially, what intrigued me was the fact that there are actually three different terms to refer to the word 'pet' in Korean language that I came to realize after reading the news. These terms are 유기동물 [yu-gi dong-mul], 애완동물 [ae-wan dong-mul], and 반려동물 [bal-lyeo dong-mul].

I would not have realized what they meant until I bumped into the articles that kept on popping up in Korea. At first, I could not differentiate between 'ae-wan dong-mul' and 'bal-lyeo dong-mul' since they both are pet animals. It turned out that they both have different nuance(s) in terms of how their owners perceive them--as to whether they are simply 'ae-wan dong-mul' or pet (which, sadly are prone to being disposable) or being 'bal-lyeo dong-mul or pet, yet regarded as a member of the family (which sort of showing the owner's love and respect for animal).

Interestingly, those three terms came up frequently on the news related to pet within Korean society. By looking into these three terms, we can learn a lot about Korean society's attitude towards pet and how it has somewhat changed the landscape of pet-related business in Korea.

전시명 《유령의 발걸음(phantom footsteps)》을 의역한 ‘유령 같은 과정’이라는 말을 통해서 내가 의미부여하고자 하는 것은 양 갈래다. 하나는, 작가가 애초 이 전시 제목에 부여한 의미대로 작품들은 “유령이 남긴 발자국처럼, 실체가 아닌 것들이 실체를 구현해내는 역설적인 현상을 은유”하며, 여기서 “‘판톰’은 삶과 사회를 지배하고 조종하는 모종의 욕망과 환영들을 총체적으로 지시”한다는 얘기다. 그러나 다른 갈래는, 그 말이 특정 작품이나 전시 대신 함경아 작업 전반을 정의하는 뜻으로 쓰이는 것이다. 이때 내가 의도하는 ‘판톰’은 ‘실체 없음’, ‘본질적이지 않음’, ‘현실화가 불가능함’ 같은 부정적 함의를 갖지 않는다. 오히려 함경아의 미술이 매번 그러나 지속해서 새로운 주제, 질료, 개념, 형식, 매체, 방법론, 표현 기교를 탐색해왔다는 의미다. 여하한 경우에도 외관만 그럴듯한 아트 오브제로 대충 귀결되지 않고, 기계적인 시스템이나 일상의 상투적인 언사 등과도 쉽게 절충하지 않으면서 말이다. 그러니까 ‘유령 같은 과정’은 그 탐색의 역학, 진행 경로, 질적 속성이 고답적이지 않고, 일종의 유령처럼 존재와 비존재 사이를 항상적으로 횡단함을 지시한다. 동시에 그런 모호성, 불확실성, 미결정성, 불안정성의 작업 과정이 야기하는 두려움 또는 어려움에도 불구하고, 함경아의 미술이 바로 그 횡단의 역학을 기꺼이 감내하는 정주 불가능한 창작을 본질로 한다는 뜻이다. 이 작가의 전시나 작품 제목에 유독 ‘서치(such)’, ‘썸(some)’ 같은 단어가 빈번히 키워드로 설정된 사실에 주목할 이유가 여기 있다. 즉 영어 구문에서 한정사이자 대명사의 역할을 하는 그 단어들이 다소 광범위하고 불분명하고 애매하게 대상을 규정하고 지시한다면, 함경아는 그런 언어적 감각을 작업 과정 및 작품을 통해 현실화해온 것이다.

There are several similarities found between the Korean and Tamil culture of India that many people are unaware. The present article discusses the similarities in language, food, and culture. Probably the Iron Age trade relationship and spread of Buddhism from Tamil Nadu bound these two great maritime nations. Besides, evidence emerges from classical Tamil literature (Sangam period 600 BCE to 300 CE), archeological findings and anthropological discoveries found in Adichanallur, a prehistoric harbor site, indicate that people of Mongoloids race traveled to the ancient seaport of Korkai, Tamil Nadu and Tamil people may have traveled to Korea for trade or missionary activities. This could be the possible reason behind the language and cultural similarities between these two nations.

Indeed, wearing a hijab during scorching summer days in Korea has always been a tantalizing challenge for a Muslim woman like my wife. But, it is a completely different situation in winter. No one cares about her wearing a hijab!

Interestingly, no one has ever asked, begged, or even forced her to remove her hijab in winter like what she (almost always) has experienced during summer days.

This is the reason as to why this particular happenstance (?) has always intrigued me—being her husband.

This is a pondering on my mind on this seemingly trivial issue that I take it lightly in this light talk.

When it comes to talking about the transformation of Korea from being one of the poorest countries in the world in the post-Korean War into one of the developed countries in the world, one may probably touch the issue through the economic lenses. The same goes with the discourses of how Korea was described during the late 19th century, colonial era under Japanese occupation, and post colonial era leading towards the Korean War and up into the present day Korea; in this case, historical perspective would be in the front row of the tool to expose and explain how Korea has evolved. However, although that is not entirely incorrect, that kind of perspective may obscure or leave out the underlying layer(s) that helped reinforce those transformations to come into existence and shaped modern Korean society today. One of the layers beneath the transformation is how Korean men and especially women managed to adjust and readjust their roles during the process. This is where the perspective of feminist scholarship using the lenses of gender set in.

** Please note that this is an essay I prepared for my exam on Modern Korean Society & Gender (Oct. 11, 2014).  Thanks to Prof. Park Jin-kyoung for 'exposing' me to the reading lists and 'opening up' a new way to see Korean society.

In the last two decades, the world has experienced a number of critical pandemic outbreaks including SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, Avian Influenza, and ASF. Most recently, the high-speed global spread of COVID-19 resulted in the need to minimise socio-religious activities by suspending both private and public meetings. Within this context, the pandemic affected Korean Christianity (total 13.59 million (27.6% of Korean population in 2015): 9.7 million-Protestants (19.7%) and 3.89 million-Catholics (7.9%). What is then the identity of Shincheonji? How were they involved in spreading the coronavirus? Why are the local people criticising the Korean church as a whole? Why has the government (i.e., health authority) accused Christian leaders and imposed fines? What is Korean Protestants’ reaction in the post-COVID-19 era? This paper explores the interdenominational voices of local churches as well as social media from February, 2020 to August, 2020: Local Finance, Korea Economics, JoongAng Ilb, The Kukmin Llbo, The Segye Times, PCK Newspaper, and Mission Life. The paper argues that the Korean Protestant Church is facing a precarious moment whereby public, governmental, and political pressure (=‘legal persecution’) could reduce its size significantly (to become smaller than Buddhism (15.5%)). However, the church has creatively implemented the countermeasure of ‘re-church-planting (다시교회세움),’ in order to revitalise its reputation and increase its growth.

In Korea, August 15 marks both the liberation from colonialism (1945) and the promulgation of the South Korean state (1948). As a memorial day, 8.15 became to be narrated mostly as the day of liberation, while 1948 plays only a minor role. However, in the 2000s, the emergence of the New Right brought new debates on how to evaluate post-liberation history.
A historical view proposing public memory on 8.15 centred on the “foundation” of South Korea emerged (kŏn’guk view). Combined with attempts to re-name 8.15 into a foundation day (kŏn’gukchŏl), an intense dispute between proponents and opponents of the re-narration was the result.
This paper outlines the emergence of the New Right and traces the origins and politicisation of the kŏn’guk view and outlines how adopting the kŏn’guk narrative in state commemoration events led to a broad dispute in South Korean society. I trace this view’s origin to 2003 and argue that it got politicised in early 2008 during the early Lee Myung-bak administration. The politicisation resulted in a dispute in politics, civil society, and newspapers, whose progress and characteristics I analyse in detail. As a result of the 2008 Kŏn’gukchŏl Dispute, the issue of how to narrate the events of 1948 became actively discussed in academic scholarship since 2009.

L’architecte coréen H-Sang Seung dérive les nécessités architecturales de deux sources : la tradition coréenne et les impératifs liés aux qualités territoriales qu’il appelle « écritures territoriales » (teomune). Seung et son équipe de la Biennale du design de Gwangju affirmèrent la nécessité de repenser la définition du design en lançant le thème paradoxal inspiré du confucianisme du « Design est le design est non-design ». Le thème rappelle les réflexions de Heidegger qui suggérait que la technique fonctionnait « toujours-déjà » à l’intérieur d’un « projet ». Il est possible de comprendre le concept heideggérien de « Gestell » (arraisonnement) comme « design ». Le problème du design devient alors qu’il fonctionne à l’intérieur de limites tracées par son propre processus de design. « L’ecriture territoriale » de Seung apparait comme un non-design dépassant le design conventionnel.

The Appropriation of Sin Saimdang as a Symbol of Modernization during the Park Chung Hee Era. In the aftermath of her death, Sin Saimdang (1504-1551), mother of Neo-Confucian philosopher Yulgok Yi I, was gradually transformed into a symbol of motherhood and female domesticity, an image which, in time, overshadowed her accomplishments as a painter. Little personal details are known about her, other than the brief characterization made posthumously by Yulgok. Everything else in her biography is anecdotal and was added by Yulgok's followers, even centuries after her death. All these layers of interpretation have made Saimdang an abstract symbol, not a real historical person. The present study investigates how this symbol was instrumented by the Park Chung Hee government (1961-1979) in order to mobilize housewives to participate in the developmentalist projects of the state. The paper argues that Sin Saimdang has been promoted by the state, with the contribution of women's organizations, as a symbol of modernization, used in gendered national mobilization. Various commemoration practices-a memorial day and a national prize honoring Saimdang, statues erected in the 1970s, the restoration of her ancestral home-stand as evidence of the coordinated efforts made by the state and women's associations to disseminate Sin Saimdang as a model for the modern Korean woman.

This article brings a transnational approach to the concept
of diasporic nationalism, often narrowly conceptualized
through the paradoxical link between displaced nation and
territory. Based on a one-year ethnographical account of
the Korean Christian community in Jerusalem, the article
aims to challenge the already troubled concept of diasporic
nationalism through the prism of a religious supranational
“homecoming” to the Holy Land that might both enhance
the national identity and transcend the very significance of
nation and nationalism.
Rather than viewing diasporic individuals as brokers,
educators, and even as “exemplary citizens” or ambassadors
of their historical homelands, I suggest moving away from
a “hypernationalist” framing of diaspora as an extended
nation toward a nuanced understanding of diasporic action
and agency. By juxtaposing national and religious nostalgia
for “imagined homelands,” I argue that while national
identity makes Korean community members outsiders in
an unwelcoming Israeli society, their status as Christians
brings them back to their religious origins through what I call
an “academic pilgrimage.” I ask how the Korean Christian
community, modeled on the concept of nation-within-nation,
negotiates its multiple identities and porous national and
religious boundaries that can reinforce, overlap, or contradict
one another both inwardly and outwardly.
Keywords: academic pilgrimage, diasporic agency, diasporic
nationalism, homecoming, imagined nostalgia, Korean
Christian diaspora

What I intend to put forward using this phrase, which is a paraphrase of the exhibition title, “Phantom Footsteps” are two points.The first is that, as the artist intended in the first place, works of art are “metaphoric of the paradoxical mechanism through which what is not substantial embodies what is substantial, like the footsteps left by a phantom,” and here “the ‘phantom’ is a general term that refers to those desires and illusions that govern and control life and society.”; the other point is that the phase can be used to define the entire body of Ham’s works, not her particular work or exhibition. What I aim to convey with the word “phantom” is not negative as in “non-substantial,” “non-essential,” or “impossible to realize”. Rather, I want to emphasize that for each and every work Ham has explored what is new in terms of theme, material, idea, form, medium, methodology, and technique. Under all circumstances, her work has not boiled down to an art object only whose appearance is art-like and has been reduced to neither a mere mechanical system nor everyday cliché. Thus, “phantom process” points to the fact that the dynamics, passage, and qualitative attributes of her exploration are not transcendent but instead constantly cross between being and non-being, like a phantom. At the same time, it addresses that the very nature of Ham’s art is rooted in the unfixed process that readily endures the dynamics of change in spite of the fear or difficulty that is destined to be caused by her art-making process of such ambiguity, uncertainty, and inderterminacy. This is also why one needs to pay attention to the noticeably frequent use of words like “such” and “some” in her titles of both her works and exhibitions. As a determiner and pronoun, these words are used for rather extensive, unclear, and vague reference, and Ham has been realizing this linguistic sense through her art-making process and works.

[Abstract] The centrality of photography to postmodern theories of representation is well documented. In the field of contemporary Korean photography, changing concepts of photographic representation are fostering a paradigm shift. This paper investigates the intersection of Korean contemporary photography— a rapidly expanding, dynamic field of practice—and postmodern theories of representation from the viewpoint of an image's relationship to reality to its intertextuality. This paper investigates the work of five contemporary Korean photographers: Seung Woo Back, Sangil Kim, KOO Sung Soo, NOH Suntag, and Hein Kuhn Oh. The work of these artists represents what I call " sensibilized knowledge " for the way their photographs bring the artist's gaze and sense into dialogue with contemporary debates concerning Korea's newfound economic and political power in the world arena, and the cultural upheavals this development has produced. Korean photographers are actively participating in the production of a critical visual culture that explores problems of knowledge and cultural identity. It now engages how people live, act, and even express beauty, and it justifies itself in culture. As opposed to a photographic tradition that uncritically celebrated Korean life or national traditions, the work of the artists in this paper addresses the complicated processes that constitute Korean reality and identity. Photographic sense in their works is not limited to esthetic meaning but includes reflections how images constitute reality, the ambiguity of the documentary image, the virtuality of photography, and other photographic messages. Korean photographers use photographic sense as a strategy way to capture heterogeneous cultural phenomena, show irony and contradiction in a multi-culturalized society, and transform a style of knowledge by taking on the role of both observer and researcher. Through an analysis of Korean contemporary photography, this paper will present how a new photographic language functions as a critical medium that talks back to society.

There are several similarities found between the Korean and Tamil culture of India that many people are unaware. The present article discusses the similarities in language, food, and culture. Probably the Iron Age trade relationship and spread of Buddhism from Tamil Nadu bound these two great maritime nations. Besides, evidence emerges from classical Tamil literature (Sangam period 600 BCE to 300 CE), archeological findings and anthropological discoveries found in Adichanallur, a prehistoric harbor site, indicate that people of Mongoloids race traveled to the ancient seaport of Korkai, Tamil Nadu and Tamil people may have traveled to Korea for trade or missionary activities. This could be the possible reason behind the language and cultural similarities between these two nations.