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Hyaeweol Choi examines the formation of modern gender relations in Korea from a transnational perspective. Diverging from a conventional understanding of 'secularization' as a defining feature of modernity, Choi argues that Protestant Christianity, introduced to Korea in the late nineteenth century, was crucial in shaping modern gender ideology, reforming domestic practices and claiming new space for women in the public sphere. In Korea, Japanese colonial power - and with it, Japanese representations of modernity - was confronted with the dominant cultural and material power of Europe and the US, which was reflected in Korean attitudes. One of the key agents in conveying ideas of "Western modernity" in Korea was globally connected Christianity, especially US-led Protestant missionary organizations. By placing gender and religion at the center of the analysis, Choi shows that the development of modern gender relations was rooted in the transnational experience of Koreans and not in a simple nexus of the colonizer and the colonized.
This book provides the first English translation of some of the central archival material concerning the development of New Woman (sin yŏsŏng) in Korea during the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. It includes selected writings of both women and men who put forward their views on some of the key issues of new womanhood, including gender equality, chastity, divorce, education, fashion, hygiene, birth control, and the women’s movement. The authors whose essays are included express a range of attitudes about the new gender ethics and practices that were deeply influenced by the incessant flow of new and modern knowledge, habits and consumer products from metropolitan Japan and the West. Emphasizing the global nature of the phenomenon of the New Woman and Modern Girl, this sourcebook provides key references to a dynamic and multifarious history of modern Korean women, whose ideals and life experiences were formed at the intersection of Western modernity, Korean nationalism, Japanese colonialism and resilient patriarchy.
This book vividly traces the genealogy of modern womanhood in the encounters between Koreans and American Protestant missionaries in the early twentieth century, during Korea's colonization by Japan. Hyaeweol Choi shows that what it meant to be a "modern" Korean woman was deeply bound up in such diverse themes as Korean nationalism, Confucian gender practices, images of the West and Christianity, and growing desires for selfhood. Her historically specific, textured analysis sheds new light on the interplay between local and global politics of gender and modernity.
“Pathbreaking. Approaches the transcultural and religious encounters of Korean and American women with a remarkable degree of sensitivity and nuance, as well as with judicious use of feminist and postcolonial theory. Its rich and diverse historical examples and illustrations are both engaging to read and meticulously documented.”—Namhee Lee, UCLA
Choi examines how global Christian networks facilitated the flow of ideas, people and material culture, shaping gendered modernity in Korea.
This book provides the first English translation of some of the central archival material concerning the development of New Woman (sin yosong) in Korea during the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. It includes selected writings of both women and men who put forward their views on some of the key issues of new womanhood, including gender equality, chastity, divorce, education, fashion, hygiene, birth control, and the women s movement. The authors whose essays are included express a range of attitudes about the new gender ethics and practices that were deeply influenced by the incessant flow of new and modern knowledge, habits and consumer products from metropolitan Japan and the West. Emphasizing the global nature of the phenomenon of the New Woman and Modern Girl, this sourcebook provides key references to a dynamic and multifarious history of modern Korean women, whose ideals and life experiences were formed at the intersection of Western modernity, Korean nationalism, Japanese colonialism and resilient patriarchy."
Divine Domesticities: Christian Paradoxes in Asia and the Pacific fills a huge lacuna in the scholarly literature on missionaries in Asia/Pacific and is transnational history at its finest. Co-edited by two eminent scholars, this multidisciplinary volume, an outgrowth of several conferences/seminars, critically examines various encounters between western missionaries and indigenous women in the Pacific/Asia … Taken as a whole, this is a thought-provoking and an indispensable reference, not only for students of colonialism/imperialism but also for those of us who have an interest in transnational and gender history in general. The chapters are very clearly written, engaging, and remarkably ...
Gender in Modern East Asia explores the history of women and gender in China, Korea, and Japan from the seventeenth century to the present. This unique volume treats the three countries separately within each time period while also placing them in global and regional contexts. Its transnational and integrated approach connects the cultural, economic, and social developments in East Asia to what is happening across the wider world. The text focuses specifically on the dynamic histories of sexuality; gender ideology, discourse, and legal construction; marriage and the family; and the gendering of work, society, culture, and power. Important themes and topics woven through the text include Confucianism, writing and language, the role of the state in gender construction, nationalism, sexuality and prostitution, New Women and Modern Girls, feminisms, "comfort" women, and imperialism. Accessibly written and comprehensive, Gender in Modern East Asia is a much-needed contribution to the study of the region.
Korea has one of the most diverse religious cultures in the world today, with a range and breadth of religious practice virtually unrivaled by any other country. This volume in the Princeton Readings in Religions series is the first anthology in any language, including Korean, to bring together a comprehensive set of original sources covering the whole gamut of religious practice in both premodern and contemporary Korea. The book's thirty-two chapters help redress the dearth of source materials on Korean religions in Western languages. Coverage includes shamanic rituals for the dead and songs to quiet fussy newborns; Buddhist meditative practices and exorcisms; Confucian geomancy and ancesto...
Throughout written history and across the world, women have protested the restrictions of gender and the limitations placed on women's bodies and women's lives. People-of any and no gender-have protested and theorized, penned manifestos and written poetry and songs, testified and lobbied, gone on strike and fomented revolution, quietly demanded that there is an "I" and loudly proclaimed that there is a "we." The Book of Feminism chronicles this history of defiance and tracks it around the world as it develops into a multivocal and unabashed force. Global in scope, The Book of Feminism shows the breadth of feminist protest and of feminist thinking, moving through the female poets of China's T...