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Assistant Professor, Asian Languages and Cultures, Northwestern University

“Korean Writing in the Age of Multilingual Word Processing:
A History of the Non-Linear Alphabet and the Cultural Technique of Writing”

Time: Friday, February 17, 3:00-5:00 pm CT

Location:  Center for East Asian Studies 319 (1155 E. 60th St.)

★Co-Sponsored by Digital Media Workshop★

Abstract: In 2016, South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyoan reflected that hangul “has been the foundation of the country as an IT powerhouse.” Claiming that the almost 500-year-old script of hangul was “well suited for the age of information,” the Prime Minister emphasized that the “glorious national culture” has prospered based on this “ingenious and scientific” national script. He was right that the information boom of the 1980s and 1990s played a crucial role in the final abolishment of the Chinese script and the ascendance of hangul in South Korea. But contrary to the Prime Minister’s claim, the non-Western alphabet of hangul posed various technological difficulties whenever new information technology appeared, and the technology of the digital computer was no exception. But the crisis that the Korean writing system encountered cannot be properly grasped based on Thomas Mullaney’s criticism of the “false universalism” where “all alphabets and syllabaries against the one major world script that is neither: character-based Chinese writing.” Nor can it be fully grasped with Yurou Zhong’s criticism of Western phonocentrism. Although, she is correct to cite Walter Ong’s observation that there have been “many scripts but only one alphabet” as she challenges the hidden assumption of the alphabetic universalism where the Roman-Latin alphabet occupies the top floor of the “grammatological hierarchy.” Focusing on the history of the 1980s, I argue that the central problem that the Korean and East Asian writing system at large faced was rather closely related to “the principle of linearity.” This was one of the two major theoretical principles undergirding the Geneva school of linguistics and what various “Western” information technologies have been long founded upon even before Saussure’s theorization. A marginal/borderline object in my analysis will be how phonemes in the Korean alphabet do not only combine with one another linearly, but both vertically and horizontally much like the Chinese script. 

Presenter: Dahye Kim is an assistant professor of Asian languages and cultures at Northwestern University. Her research interests include modern Korean literature and media culture, critical approaches to media history, and the cultural dimensions of communication technologies in Korea. She is especially interested in changing the significance and signification of literature and literacy in the evolving media studies landscape.

Respondent: Thomas Lamarre is a scholar of media, cinema and animation, intellectual history, and material culture, with projects ranging from the communication networks of 9th century Japan (Uncovering Heian Japan: An Archaeology of Sensation and Inscription, 2000), to silent cinema and the global imaginary (Shadows on the Screen: Tanizaki Jun’ichirō on Cinema and Oriental Aesthetics, 2005), animation technologies (The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation, 2009) and on television infrastructures and media ecology (The Anime Ecology: A Genealogy of Television, Animation, and Game Media, 2018).

Post-doctoral Scholar, EALC

Mock Job Talk

“Ko Chŏng-hŭi’s Enclosed Reading: (Re)Constructing History and Sisterhood for Feminist Poetic Creation”

Time: Friday, February 10, 3:00-5:00 pm CT

Zoom link: https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/96867343582?pwd=UkNnbWxBOXFkOHQ2eHN5bHEzV3QvUT09

Abstract: This presentation investigates the feminist writing of Ko Chŏng-hŭi, a vocal and prominent feminist South Korean poet most active in the mid-1980s to her sudden death in 1991. It delves into Ko’s authorial stance and radical feminist imperative to produce poems that are specifically about, for, or by Korean women. Publishing poetry was one part of her larger literary and feminist activism, as Ko was also a critic, newspaper editor, and public speaker. However, poetry was the primary space in which she explored the ways in which she could enact a revision/re-vision of history through women’s voices. Thus, this presentation examines Ko’s various poetic strategies to 1) excavate and erect women’s literature and literary culture against the patriarchal domain of the Korean literary establishment, and 2) invoke pan-Asian feminist solidarity across the countries “victimized” by imperialism and capitalism. The latter project demonstrates that Ko was starting to add another intersectional dimension, ethnicity, to her class- and gender-conscious poetry, and to meditate on her Korean woman’s identity outside of the Korean context.

Presenter: Emily Jungmin Yoon is the Abigail Rebecca Cohen Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Chicago, where she received her Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations in 2022. As a poet, Yoon has published collections A Cruelty Special to Our Species (Ecco|HarperCollins, 2018) and Ordinary Misfortunes (Tupelo Press, 2017). She also serves as the Poetry Editor for The Margins, the digital magazine of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.

Presenters: Simon Lenoe, Amber Qi, Lucia Wang, Jinhee Kim, Rena Zhang
Discussants: Danlin Zhang, Nick Ogonek, Yeti Kang, Ethan Waddell, Ellen Larson

Time: Friday, January 26, 3:00-5:00 pm CT

Location: Center for East Asian Studies 319 (1155 E. 60th St.)

Abstract: How does one embark upon a research project? What are the means, ways, and parameters by which one defines and engages with an object of study, especially within the realm of area studies? In what way should one go about making their research legible to other scholars across geographical regions and disciplinary boundaries? This thesis proposal workshop is designed for MAPH students working on projects related to East Asian area studies. Our goals are to provide a space for students to discuss their work while it is still at a conceptual stage, to facilitate an opportunity to share projects which engage with the themes of APEA, and to encourage collaborative feedback from APEA’s regular attendees, including other graduate students and professors across various disciplines and specialties related to East Asia.

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.

Dear colleagues, faculty members, and friends,

The Arts and Politics of East Asia Workshop (APEA) is pleased to announce our Winter 2023 schedule. The workshop will meet on Fridays 3:00-5:00 pm in the Winter quarter unless otherwise noted. As usual, we will send reminder emails with location info prior to every workshop session, along with the link to the pre-circulated papers. Please sign up for our listserv if you have not already received those emails.

Winter 2023 Schedule

January 13th, Friday (in-person), 3:00–5:00 p.m.
Yukun Zeng, Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropology
“The Cultural Revolution in a Confucian School: Autonomy, Discipline, and Schismogenesis in the Dujing Movement in Contemporary China”
Discussant: Jacob Eyferth, Associate Professor in Chinese History, ELAC
Location: Center for East Asian Studies 319 (1155 E. 60th St.)

January 26th, Thursday (in-person), 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Graeme Reynolds, Instructor in History
“Publishing Official Histories of Koryŏ in the Chosŏn”
Discussant: Hoyt Long, Professor of Japanese Literature, EALC
Location: John Hope Franklin Room, SSR Building
★Co-Sponsored by East Asia: Transregional Histories Workshop★

January 27th, Friday (in-person), 3:00–5:00 p.m.
MAPH Research Embarkment Workshop
Presenters: Simon Lenoe, Amber Qi, Lucia Wang, Jinhee Kim, Rena Zhang
Discussants: Danlin Zhang, Nick Ogonek, Lilian Kong, Ethan Waddell
Location: Center for East Asian Studies 319 (1155 E. 60th St.)

February 10th, Friday (Zoom), 3:00–5:00 p.m.
Emily Yoon, PhD Candidate, EALC
[Practice job talk, title TBD]

February 17th, Friday (in-person), 3:00–5:00 p.m.
Dahye Kim, Assistant Professor, Asian Languages and Cultures, Northwestern University
“The Crisis and the Rise of the Non-Linear Alphabet: The Cultural Technique of Hangul Only Writing in the Age of Information”
Discussant: Thomas Lamarre, Gordon J Laing Distinguished Service Professor in CMS, EALC, and the College
Location: Center for East Asian Studies 319 (1155 E. 60th St.)
★Co-Sponsored by Digital Media Workshop★

March 3rd, Friday (in-person), 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Yueling Ji, Ph.D. Candidate, EALC
“Wind from the East: Classical Poetics in Mao Zedong’s Yan’an Talks”
Discussant: Qiyu Yang, Ph.D. Student, EALC
Location: Center for East Asian Studies 319 (1155 E. 60th St.)

March 9rd, Thursday (in-person), 3:30-5:00 p.m.
Viren Murthy, Professor, History, University of Wisconsin-Madison
[On Takeuchi Yoshimi, title TBD]
Location: Swift Hall, Room 201
★Co-Sponsored by Philosophy of Religions Workshop★

Please feel free to contact Yuwei (ywzhou@uchicago.edu) and Elvin (emeng@uchicago.edu) with any questions you might have, and we look forward to seeing you at APEA this winter!

PhD Student, Comparative Literature and EALC

“Cataloguing the Media Ecology of Qing Multilingualism: Patterns and Highlights”

Time: Friday, December 2, 2:30-4:30pm CT

Location: Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center Classroom (Regenstein Library Room 136)

Please note the unusual place and time!

Before arriving, please familiarize yourself with the guidelines of the Special Collections.

Abstract: The University of Chicago Library is home to one of North America’s largest collections of Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan rare books and manuscripts from the early modern period, acquired by the Library in several waves in the first half of the twentieth century. These non-Han (or at least, not-solely-Han) xylographs and manuscripts are important sources for understanding the necessarily-plural cultural, political, social, and intellectual histories of the Qing (Mnc. Daicing gurun; Mon. Dayičing ulus), a period whose cultural multiplicity partakes in a long tradition of Inner Asian modes of governance and whose legacy continues to this day.

Approaching this corpus of textual artifacts—and in particular the 71 Manchu language titles that have recently received an updated catalogue—through analytical bibliography and codicology (lato sensu), this presentation gives an introduction to the collection and explores the challenges its various material aspects (format, paper, inserts, ductus, marginalia, reading marks, manuscript composition) pose to the history of reading in a multilingual context. Thinking of this corpus as partaking in a media ecology consisting of interlinked and multi-modal practices of multilingual production, circulation, and consumption, conventional aggregates such as language and genre give way to more local, ambiguous forms of (multi-)languaging. This recognition of more-than-Chinese textual/material practice as overlooked loci of early modern thought, in turn, enables a renewed thinking on familiar questions such as the relationship between literacy and literature, or the nature of linguistic knowledge in the age of kaozheng xue.

Presenter: Elvin Meng is a joint PhD student in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Department of East Asian Languages & Civilizations at the University of Chicago. His research interests include East Asian & European thought, media history & theory, translation, Manchu studies, history of linguistics & mathematics, and modernism.