Earticle

This study argues that Simsŏl 心說 (Exposition on the heart-mind) by Sŏngho Yi Ik 星湖 李瀷 (1681–1763) follows the traditional Neo-Confucian understanding of the heart-mind. Based on the structural similarity between the three layers of the heart-mind—plant, animal, and human—in his writings and in those of the Jesuit order, much previous research has claimed that he was influenced by Western learning. Although the hierarchy of plant, animal, and human first appeared in the Xunzi 荀子, it is accepted by Zhu Xi 朱熹, and is included in the Sŏngni taejŏn 性理大全 (Compendium on nature and principle). Sŏngho’s articulation of the heart-mind followed Neo-Confucian ideas. He acknowledged that the heart-mind of plants is an allegory that refers to the existence of a pattern-principle in the world. He also described the function of the heart-mind in terms of a consciousness, zhijue 知覺 (K. chigak), that in animals, tends to like profit and hate loss, while in humans, it informs their sense of right and wrong. In contrast, Matteo Ricci rejected the Xunzian hierarchy of the myriad being and instead characterized living things in terms of their possession of a soul and found human beings to be unique in terms of their possession of an immortal soul, comprised of reason and free will. While Western learning may have been an inspiration for Sŏngho in composing Simsŏl, his work followed a Neo-Confucian understanding of the heart-mind.

The worship of Guan Yu entered Chosŏn Korea from Ming China during the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–98). Although it was initially regarded as a foreign custom, Chosŏn monarchs gradually adopted it for political purposes from the late seventeenth century onward. In particular, Yŏngjo 英祖 (r. 1724–76) appropriated the rituals associated with Guan Yu to assert his dominance within the power dynamics of the Chosŏn court. This paper focuses on the strategies Yŏngjo used to appropriate the symbolism of Guan Yu in his writings on the shrines to the great Chinese hero. It examines how the king employed the rhetoric of Pip’ung 匪風 (No breeze) and Hach’ŏn 下泉 (Falling spring), slogans of a pro-Ming and anti-Qing 淸 ideology, for domestic political purposes. The paper also interprets the rituals dedicated to Guan Yu, including the rites at Hwangdan 皇壇 (Imperial altar, also known as Taebodan 大報壇), as part of a larger project that aimed at securing the king’s moral superiority and political legitimacy. In doing so, the paper illustrates how Yŏngjo appropriated the symbolism and rituals of Guan Yu and used them as media for reinforcing and exercising power within the court of Chosŏn.

This article examines how the Korean writer Paek Ch’ŏl translated and adapted Michael Gold’s American proletarian poem “120 Million” into Korean using the sprechchor (speaking chorus) genre, which originated in Germany and entered Korean literary circles via Japanese leftists. Focusing on the early 1930s, it explores how Paek anchored his literary practice in the materialist dialectic and how his stage adaptation enhances our understanding of that dialectic as manifested in Gold’s poetry. The analysis shows that the communist aesthetic championed by Gold and Paek strives not to forgo any aspect of the world, seeking to replace a bourgeois ersatz totality with a Marxian bona fide one. Since Marxism, understood as a living philosophy, hinges on grasping transformation and process, its aesthetic centers on praxis attuned to the emergent forces that disrupt hegemonic formations. It aims to overcome the alienation of individuals from their labor, their communities, and the elements of their being—ultimately reclaiming economic, political, cultural, and communal dimensions to which humanity is entitled. Although proletarian aesthetics in colonial Korea were largely shaped by Russian, German, and Japanese thinkers, Paek uniquely positioned Gold’s poetry as a model of materialist dialectics and a corrective to the artistic impasse facing Korean writers. By theatrically rendering this dialectic through American verse—a relatively obscure current in world Communist literature—Paek sought to awaken his audience at the intersection of colonial rule, the Great Depression, and the global resurgence of Marxist thought.

This article examines the development of state feminism in the emerging North Korean state, in particular the institutionalization of the North Korean Democratic Women’s Union (Pukchosŏn Minju Yŏsŏng Tongmaeng) to mobilize women for the building of the state from 1945–49. It examines how the women’s union became the sole women’s organization and how the organization became a state agent, politically mobilizing female voters for the communist party, and an intermediary, translating international socialist materials into Korean educational literature. In this period, the women’s union contributed to the political legitimization of the Communist Party as the people’s party. In addition, the women’s union translated international socialist narratives on the liberation of women and reformulated them for the Korean context to construct an ideal modern citizen embodying the postcolonial “tradition within modernity.” They also deployed this unifying ideology of “entwined liberations”—that the state liberated women and women liberated the nation via their roles as innovative workers and revolutionary mothers. The article seeks to show that these active participation by the women’s union was fundamentally interlinked with and instrumental to nascent postcolonial state building of North Korea.

In August 1948, North Korea held an election for the Supreme People’s Assembly, essentially a symbolic legislature with no real authority. The regime in Pyongyang claimed that an astounding three-fourths of South Koreans secretly participated in this election, ostensibly granting the assembly jurisdiction over the entire country. This article posits that this claim transcended mere propaganda; rather, it exemplified a striking instance of self-deception among the decision-makers in Pyongyang. Compelling evidence indicates that the audacious claim of widespread South Korean participation was genuinely embraced in Pyongyang, both by North Korean authorities and their Soviet overseers. This belief evidently played a role in shaping the decision to initiate the Korean War in 1950. The article suggests that echo chambers facilitate a decision-making pattern fraught with potentially grave consequences. The case examined in the paper illustrates the alarming extent to which the biases of decision-makers can obscure their judgment, leading them to disregard an overt falsehood.

Even after two hereditary successions of power and what would appear to be preparations for a third, the question of whether North Korea should be considered a monarchy is yet to be recognized as an important one. Taking both North Korean realities and relevant political-scientific discussions of the institution of monarchy into account, this paper argues that North Korea should indeed be considered a monarchy. The monarchical model, if properly understood, may afford insight into the stability and longevity of the regime, suggest a different approach to nuclear negotiations, and produce less alarming assessments of the risk of conflict than those currently informed by the perception of a conventional personalist dictatorship.

This study investigates the use of historical films as a tool for content activism in challenging the historical perspectives of the Japanese government and hawkish right-wing groups. The investigation involves the conceptualization, production, and dissemination of two South Korean historical films, namely, Kwihyang 귀향 and Kunhamdo 군함도, and an examination of the social and political ramifications of these films. The study identifies two revisionist movements in Japan: (a) the rebranding of the comfort women as women who had chosen prostitution and (b) the transformation of Hashima Island, a site of forced labor, into a site of industrial revolution. It then outlines how the two films confronted these issues and led to social activism in relation to them. The study demonstrates how content activism through historical films can effectively confront historical revisionism.