King Chongjo, an Enlightened Despot in Early Modern Korea
Were the countries of Europe the only ones that were “early modern”? Was Asia’s early modernity cut short by colonialism? Scholars examining early modern Eurasia have not yet fully explored the relationships between absolute rule and political modernization in the highly contested early modern world. Using a comparative perspective that places Chŏngjo, king of Korea from 1776 to 1800, in context with other Korean kings and with contemporary Chinese and European rulers, I examine the shifting balance of power in Korea in favor of the crown at the expense of the aristocracy during the early modern period. This book is the first to analyze in English the recently discovered collection of 297 private letters written by Chŏngjo himself. These letters were a vital channel of communication outside of official court historians’ scrutiny, since private meetings between the king and his ministers were forbidden by custom. Royal politics played out in an arena of subtle communication, with court officials trying to read the king’s unstated, elliptically hinted at intentions and the king trying to suggest what he wanted done while maintaining plausible deniability. Through close analysis of both official records and private letters, including Chŏngjo’s “secret letters,” I show that, in contrast to previous assumptions, the late eighteenth-century Korean monarchs were not weak and ineffective but instead were in the process of building an absolutist polity.
“Down and Out in Eco-Dystopia: Class and Gender in Wonderful Days.” Korea Europe Review
The film Wonderful Days plays out in a science fiction setting the history of Korea’s struggle against dictatorial rule. The plot concerns an attempt to end the exploitation of the oppressed workers. However, the symbolism is muddled and confused because of the reactionary approach to gender. The symbol of the Korean middle class and only female character is a passive observer, which elides the crucial role of the middle class in the struggle against dictatorship. By succumbing to gender roles typical of Korean romantic dramas, the film fails at effectively dramatizing Korean class conflict in its futuristic post-apocalyptic setting. This article brings history into the analysis of this film and by extension to analysis of science fiction and film overall. It offers an example of the integration of historical analysis into scholarly work on popular film.
“LBJ’s Hessians? Korean Troops’ Dispatch to Vietnam.” In The Vietnam War in the Pacific, edited by Brian Cuddy and Fredrik Logevall. University of North Carolina
South Korea was the largest contributor to America’s war effort in Vietnam, maintaining 50,000 troops in South Vietnam for the majority of the war. This chapter argues that the characterization of Korean troops in Vietnam as mercenaries is inappropriate and serves to distract from and obscure our understanding of Korea’s involvement in the war. Rather, President of South Korea Park Chung-hee was concerned with shoring up his legitimacy at home. Sending Korean troops to Vietnam guaranteed US support for his regime, distracted Koreans’ attention from the deeply unpopular restoration of diplomatic relations with Japan, and galvanized anti-Communist fervor that was the legitimizing basis of Park’s coup, greatly strengthening Park’s hand against his domestic opponents.
“Korea: A Slave Society.” In Slavery and Bonded Labor in Asia, 1250-1900, edited by Richard B. Allen and Jeff Fynn-Paul. Brill
This chapter explores the controversy in Korean academia over the disputed status of the nobi, translated in the West as “slave” but often translated by Korean scholars as “servant”, “serf”, “coerced laborer”, or even transliterated, to avoid the slave label. It further investigates Korea as a “slave society”, with particular attention to comparison with slavery in Southeast Asia and the effects of Confucianism on patterns of slaveholding and on failed emancipation efforts before Korea’s encounter with modern imperialism. Few scholars outside Korea are aware that Korean slaves could own their own property apart from their masters’, including other slaves, and that Koreans enslaved other Koreans, who were linguistically, ethnically, racially, and culturally indistinguishable from their slavers. The Korean case has a great contribution to make to slavery studies, but English-language work in the area remains sorely lacking.
“Monarchs, Monks, and Scholars: Religion and State Power in Tudor England and Chosŏn Korea.” Journal of Asian History 53:2
This article examines two cases of state-initiated, top-down attempts to impose a large-scale religious change on a premodern society, accompanied by large-scale state seizure of monastic lands: Chosŏn Korea and Tudor England. This comparison illuminates both generalities in how the seizure was justified and the relationship between politics and royal religious belief and specificities of restoration of the old religion as a succession issue in later reigns.
“A Ghost in the Replicant? Questions of Humanity and Technological Integration in Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell.” MOSF Journal of Science Fiction 3:1
In this world of increasing integration with technology, what does it mean to be human? Blade Runner (1982) and Ghost in the Shell (1995) are two artistic works that directly address this question. Blade Runner posits a world in which imitation humans—artificial people—can only be identified through emotional testing. In Ghost in the Shell, the human mind can be hacked, manipulated, built, and rebuilt like any other computer. This article makes use of affect theory to address the connection between empathy and memory in defining what is human. Using these films—along with Blade Runner’s source novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?—I conclude that mainstream science fiction is increasingly comfortable with technological integration and less inclined to rigidly demarcate a human-nonhuman boundary.
“Absolute Monarchy East and West: Chŏngjo and Louis XIV.” Journal of Asian History 52
This article examines the function of absolute rule in the reigns of Louis XIV in France and King Chŏngjo in Korea by investigating the nature of absolutism and the conditions of early modern France and Korea. It concludes that, despite the enormous geographic and cultural distances between them, conditions in early modern France and Korea were such that absolutism functioned in each polity in remarkably similar ways, strengthening the case for early modern as a useful periodization throughout Eurasia.
“Royal Rage: The Fatal Encounter (Yŏngnin) as an Historical Film.” Acta Koreana 20:2
Examines the 2014 film The Fatal Encounter (逆鱗) as an historical film and concludes it succeeds as a work of history because it engages with historical sources and data, offers a narrative interpretation, and engages in “true invention”. The film grounds scholarly writings and artifacts in a moving, living, breathing atmosphere that conveys the time and place, and it presents the stories of non-elite characters that are often left out of the standard historical narratives.
“Shangdi is Watching You: Tasan and Big Moralizing Gods.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 83:2
Examines the moral thought of Korean Confucian philosopher Chŏng Yagyong (Tasan) and the Big Moralizing Gods hypothesis in the cognitive science of religion. Explores these similarities in order both to provide empirical support for Tasan’s argument and to investigate how his work might in turn suggest avenues of future research into Big Moralizing Gods. An example of consilience—that is, the vertical integration of disciplines in the physical and social sciences and the humanities into a single framework in which different levels of explanation are consistent with one another.
“Making Sense of the Imperial Pivot: Metaphor Theory and the Writings of King Chŏngjo.” Korea Journal 52:3
Draws on conceptual metaphor theory and blending theory to examine King Chŏngjo’s (r. 1776-1800) use of the “Imperial Pivot” (皇極) metaphor to propagate a royalist political philosophy through which to combat the minister-centered thought of the aristocracy. The Imperial Pivot is a blended space that allows Chŏngjo to invoke the visceral desire for equilibrium provided by the pivot metaphor while leaving behind its connotation of passivity.
“The King’s Reason: Yi Sŏng-gye and the Centralization of Power in Early Chosŏn.” Korea Review of International Studies 9:1
Examines Chosŏn founder Yi Sŏng-gye’s realistic outlook that lead to the establishment of Neo-Confucianism despite his deep personal commitment to Buddhism. Concludes his support of Neo-Confucian stemmed from practical rather than ideological considerations.