Instructor, History
“Block and Type: Publishing Official Histories of Koryŏ in the Chosŏn”
Time: Thursday, January 26, 4:00-5:30 pm CT
Location: John Hope Franklin Room, SSR Building
(please note the noncanonical meeting location and time)
★Co-Sponsored by East Asia: Transregional Histories Workshop★
Abstract: The History of Koryŏ and the Essentials of Koryŏ History are two early Chosŏn (1392–1910) court histories about Chosŏn’s predecessor, the Koryŏ (918–1392). This paper examines the manufacture and publication of these two official histories, arguing that the motives and means for publishing and circulating each history varied over the course of the dynasty and that court support for reproducing these texts was not guaranteed. In addition, this paper shows how economics, politics, and ideology informed the employment of different technologies—movable type and woodblock—as a means of production and circulation of court histories in Chosŏn’s non-commercial book economy. There were conflicting impulses within the early Chosŏn court about the distribution of these histories; some officials supported the circulation of histories on Koryŏ while others worried about leaking information abroad. Such court concerns joined with enthusiasm for metal movable type, an expensive prestige technology in the early Chosŏn, to bring about the modest print runs of the fifteenth and sixteenth-century typographic editions of the History and the Essentials. In contrast, the late Chosŏn court, simultaneously less inclined to either promote or fear the distribution of the histories of Koryŏ and motivated by the fear of loss due to the catastrophic damage of the Imjin war, sponsored the production of long-lasting woodblocks for the History (although the Essentials did not receive such attention). At the same time, the court did not embark on a campaign to distribute copies of the woodblock edition of the History. Instead, circulation was driven by literati interest as increasing numbers of scholars and schools used the woodblocks to print their own copy, resulting in a robust circulation of historical materials that substantially underwrote a boom in private history writing in the late Chosŏn.
Presenter: Graeme R. Reynolds is a historian of early modern Korea with interests in the production and circulation of knowledge, the history of the book, and historiography. He is currently working on a book examining the production, circulation, and reception of official histories of the Koryŏ in the Chosŏn dynasty.
Respondent: Hoyt Long is a Professor of Japanese Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. He has research and teaching interests in modern Japanese literature, digital methods, sociology of culture, and media studies.
