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Han Hyŏng-mo’s Madame Freedom (Chayu puin, 1956) is often overshadowed by Chŏng Pi-sŏk’s novel of the same title, which provoked public debates about representations of the moral decadence and practices of individual freedom of the upper class after the Korean War. Shifting critical attention from its relation to the original literary work to its cinematic achievements, this article elucidates how the particular mode of address intervenes in the spectator’s viewing experience. I first propose the concept of “cinematic theatricality,” which I coin from theatricality, but the concept goes beyond its association with the theater and theatrical performance, to discuss the display–spectator relationship that the film suggests. Second, I explore the political implications of the cultural Otherness of female dancing bodies by investigating public discussions of social dance in the 1950s. Finally, closely analyzing ‘Madame Freedom’ Sŏn-yŏng’s gaze and the gazes upon her, I demonstrate how the film encourages the spectator to become aware of the act of viewing while creating a distance between the spectator and the displayed. I argue that by exploring cinematic theatricality, Madame Freedom invites the spectator to observe the gendered and ethnocultural gaze that emerged in mid-1950s South Korea and the attempt of the Cold War mechanism to place the individual body and desire under surveillance.

As the South Korean government invests ever more heavily in its soft power, categories such as pop music, television dramas, and Korean cuisine—rebranded as K-pop, Kdramas, and K-food, respectively—become tools for furthering South Korean interests abroad, as well as for changing national identity at home. Although South Korea continues to be known as a land of excessive “education fever,” where children and teenagers go through a grueling school system in order to win acceptance at a handful of top universities, the growing pop industry gives hope to some children and parents that success may be found through other avenues. Elsewhere I have explored negotiations between parents and children over academics, artistic pursuits, and fandom activities; in this article I specifically examine discourse around the nostalgia-laden television dramas in the Answer Me franchise (which introduced South Korea’s first mass pop fandom era in Answer Me, 1997, and then reached back to 1994 and 1988 in subsequent series) and connections between the nostalgic pop fandom worlds presented on-screen and current K-pop desires and anxieties in South Korea. Drawing on interviews with mothers and daughters, analysis of media reports, and readings of the media texts in question, I argue that mothers and daughters utilize nostalgic media (Kdramas) and future-oriented media (K-pop) in the everyday to understand one another’s affective worlds, and to forge mother-daughter bonds. Evolving Korean screen cultures are shifting understandings of leisure, filial and maternal subjectivity, and productive citizenship in South Korea.

This article attends to the central role of video and projection screens in transnational multisite churches based in South Korea. Drawing on field research in Seoul and in Los Angeles, this article illustrates how the relationship between congregants and the screens themselves is a condition for the emergence of a particular configuration of Christian community, which I will peirastically call “screen Christianity.” The place of screens and their related practices undergird theological conceptions of contact and community, such that screens are said to transmit healing touches and pastors are understood to be present through the proliferation of their screened image. Considering these Christian churches as engaging in screen Christianity highlights how particular material configurations animate these church bodies and ultimately make such transnational communities imaginable.

In an attempt to explore how local traditional narrative manifests in a globalized media format, we analyzed five aesthetic elements of Korean traditional performances in Infinite Challenge (Muhan tojŏn) in terms of the sinmyŏng narrative. In the Infinite Challenge show, the personae release pent-up energy through endless challenges, sustain positive attitudes towards life by wiping away tears through laughter, have fun with playful deception games or word play, act like childish fools (pabo) and pranksters (kŏndal ) who indulge their unbound desires, and interact with participatory audiences in an open structure. Coupled with previous research confirming that traditional communication styles shape modes of expression in contemporary media content, we believe this study can provide empirical evidence to substantiate the creative potential of local traditional narrative in indigenizing global media programs.

This article evaluates The Fatal Encounter (Yŏngnin 逆鱗) as a historical film. Drawing on the work of Robert A. Rosenstone and Robert Brent Toplin, it asks whether or not the film offers a historical interpretation and examines its use of artistic license. It concludes the film is a work of history that engages with historical sources and data, offers a narrative interpretation, and engages in what Rosenstone has termed “true invention.” The exercise of dramatic license is acceptable for a film of this type, the big-budget blockbuster, and it remains in the realm of history, unlike works of “faction” such as Roaring Currents (Myŏngnyang) or costume dramas such as Zhang Yimou’s Hero. The article compares The Fatal Encounter to Roaring Currents in order to highlight the differences between a historical film and a work of faction apart from the films’ respective merits as works of art. Within the limitations of its format, The Fatal Encounter presents a reasonably authentic view of its historical setting and offers an interpretation that includes aspects of history not typically presented in popular works of Korean history.

Stone statues created for royal funerary sites first appear in the Unified Silla period (668–935) at the royal tomb of King Sŏngdŏk and symbolize the beginning of a funerary sculptural tradition that would later develop, albeit in a limited manner, into a uniquely Silla aesthetic. The stone statues can be categorized into two types. The first includes statues of military officials called mugwansang (武官像) while the second group is made up of statues of warriors called muinsang (武人像). However, only the first type can be found at the Sŏngdŏk burial site. The statues of military officials in the Silla dynasty are distinguishable by a number of characteristics such as the presence of armor, hidden hands and the presence of a sword. From a combined examination of historical records, contemporary stonework and contextual considerations, it can be concluded that the stone statues of the royal tombs were not produced simultaneously with the construction of the burial site as is generally believed. Rather, these stone statues were later additions commissioned by the successors of the buried individuals. The motivation prompting the production of these stone statues was dominantly political in nature but could be attributed to several reasons that were specific to each ruler’s circumstances. Furthermore, the observed parallels between the Sŏngdŏk statues of military officials and their Tang dynasty equivalents suggest that the Korean tradition of funerary stone sculpture can trace its beginning to Chinese influence. However, the differences between the statues of each respective culture also signify that the Silla dynasty implemented its own aesthetic and eventually developed its own style though the production of such sculpture remained extremely restricted.

There were encounters between Chosŏn 朝鮮 scholar Hong Tae-yong 洪大容 (1731– 1783) and Jesuit missionary Ferdinand Augustin von Hallerstein (1703–1774), whose Chinese name was Liu Songling 劉松齡 at the South Church (Nantang 南堂) in Beijing on the 9th day of the 1st month of 1766. Hong Tae-yong, who wanted to learn advanced Western technology, met Hallerstein personally three times and asked him about various aspects of astronomy, Western technology, musical instruments, and Catholicism. He recorded these encounters in classical Chinese in one of the chapters of Tamhŏn yŏn’gi 湛軒燕記 (Hong Tae-yong’s record of an embassy to Beijing), entitled “Yu P’o mundap” 劉鮑問答 (Questions and answers with Hallerstein and Gogeisl). He also recorded these encounters in vernacular Korean in his Ŭlbyŏng yŏnhaengnok 乙丙燕行錄 (Record of an embassy to Beijing in 1765–1766). This study discusses how Hallerstein’s and Gogeisl’s names came to be recorded on the two red papers used to accept Hong’s request for the visit, and further analyzes the historical context related to the red papers. This study also introduces Hallerstein’s letter concerning Chosŏn and attempts to evaluate the encounter between Hong Tae-yong and Hallerstein. Ultimately, in explaining how the background and surroundings of that time made it difficult for their relationship to develop in a constructive way, this study tries to shed light on one case of important interactions between Chosŏn and the West.

After Liberation in 1945, the concept of democracy was introduced to southern Korea through discursively contested representations formulated by the American occupation authorities and Koreans on the political left and right. One of the main fields of contestation was in education as the Americans and Koreans advanced their own interpretations of democratic education that addressed the relationship between the individual and the state. The American perspective on democratic education was grounded in the progressive ideals sweeping the United States. However, progressivism contained an inherent contradiction as it attempted the depoliticization of education while protecting colonial-era collaborators and enforcing anti-communism. The leftwing liberal Korean perspective challenged the social and economic contradictions inherited from the colonial period by critiquing bourgeois individualism in favor of a socially-oriented democratic education. The right-wing conservative Korean position was divided between the New Education movement and democratic nationalist education, but the latter emerged as the dominant education philosophy of the Republic of Korea. Democratic nationalist education under An Ho-sang pushed an ultranationalist agenda that submerged individualism in favor of the state but ultimately dismayed the American occupation officials who had previously overseen education reform. The discourse of democracy in the post-Liberation period initiated an evolutionary process of democratic development that has continued through modern Korean history up to the present day.

During the Japanese colonial period and after the arrival of Korean independence, Korean Buddhism experienced a noticeable revival and rise of Buddhist organizations and NGOs. This article aims to examine the characteristics of lay Buddhist communities, with special reference to the ‘Buddhist Solidarity for Reform’ (BSR) organization in contemporary South Korea, which is actively engaging the laity by defining the role of modern Buddhism. This leading organization began as a distinct community movement confined to the urban masses and based on Buddhist beliefs. The group seeks reform of monastic Buddhism and calls for deeper participation of the laity in Buddhist activities. The BSR represents the elite urban class and primarily functions as a moderator for socially engaged Buddhism. This organization not only deals with community matters but also serves to buttress promotion of Buddhist practices in everyday life. The BSR functions completely independently and is critical toward the monastic-centric Buddhist orders of South Korea. Describing historical shifts in the lay Buddhist movements, this study analyzes how the lay Buddhist organizations are raising their voices, furthering social agendas for the urban laity and expanding their social bases by forming religious social networks.

This study investigated offline and online comprehension of Korean locative alternation by Chinese-speaking second language (L2) learners of Korean. An acceptability judgment task and an online self-paced reading task were conducted with Chinese learners of Korean at higher- and lower-proficiency levels along with a control group of native Korean speakers. The outcomes of the acceptability judgment task showed that both L2 groups acquired the knowledge of Korean locative alternation. The results from the self-paced reading task demonstrated that native speakers and highly proficient L2 learners, but not learners with lower proficiency, showed sensitivity to the mismatch between case marking and verb semantics in their processing of locative constructions. These findings suggest that proficient Chinese speakers can process Korean locative constructions in a native-like manner, inconsistent with the claim that L2 processing is substantially different from native speaker processing.