Songs of Seoul: An Ethnography of Voice and Voicing in Christian South Korea
Harkness N. Songs of Seoul: An Ethnography of Voice and Voicing in Christian South Korea. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press; 2013 pp. 320. Website Link
Songs of Seoul is an ethnographic study of voice in South Korea, where the performance of Western opera, art songs, and choral music is an overwhelmingly Evangelical Christian enterprise. Drawing on fieldwork in churches, concert halls, and schools of music, Harkness argues that the European-style classical voice has become a specifically Christian emblem of South Korean prosperity. By cultivating certain qualities of voice and suppressing others, Korean Christians strive to personally embody the social transformations promised by their religion: from superstition to enlightenment; from dictatorship to democracy; from sickness to health; from poverty to wealth; from dirtiness to cleanliness; from sadness to joy; from suffering to grace. Tackling the problematic of voice in anthropology and across a number of disciplines, Songs of Seoul develops an innovative semiotic approach to connecting the materiality of body and sound, the social life of speech and song, and the cultural voicing of perspective and personhood.
New Perspectives on Early Korean Art: From Silla to Koryŏ
Kim Y-mi ed. New Perspectives on Early Korean Art: From Silla to Koryŏ. Cambridge, MA: Korea Institute, Harvard University; 2013.
Volumes in the Early Korea Project Occasional Series focus on central issues related to the study of early Korean history and archaeology. This volume includes discussion of a variety of artworks, ranging from gold adornments found in Silla tombs to Koryŏ Buddhist paintings scattered in modern museum and private collections, that provide insight into the religious practices, aesthetics, cross-cultural exchanges, and everyday life of the people who made, used, appreciated, and circulated them. Based on thorough investigations of these artworks, their social context, and related texts, the five chapters in this book elucidate the cross-cultural interactions between the peoples and regions of Korea, China and South and Southeast Asia during the Silla to Koryŏ periods. Copyright © 2013 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College Printed in Seoul, Korea by Haingraph Co., Ltd. Distributed by the University of Hawai'i Press
The Han Commanderies in Early Korean History
Byington ME ed. The Han Commanderies in Early Korean History. Cambridge, MA: Korea Institute, Harvard University; 2013.
Volumes in the Early Korea Project Occasional Series focus on central issues related to the study of early Korean history and archaeology. The present volume treats that period of the history of the Korean peninsula characterized by the presence of commanderies first established by the Chinese Han empire in 108 B.C. The ten chapters of this volume address such topics as the societies that preceded the commanderies, the history and material culture of the commanderies, particularly of Lelang, the political and cultural influence the commanderies exerted upon surrounding regions, and the structural character of the commanderies in Korean viewed in broad perspective. Copyright © 2013 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College Printed in Seoul, Korea by Haingraph Co., Ltd. Distributed by the University of Hawai'i Press
Voice from the North: Resurrecting Regional Identity Through the Life and Work of Yi Sihang (1672–1736)
Kim SJ. Voice from the North: Resurrecting Regional Identity Through the Life and Work of Yi Sihang (1672–1736). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press; 2013 pp. 264.Abstract
"Voice from the North" resurrects the forgotten historical memory of the people and region in late Choson Korea while also enriching the social history of the country. Sun Joo Kim accomplishes this by examining the life and work of Yi Sihang, a historically obscure person from a hinterland in Korea's northwestern region who was also a member of the literati. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Yi Sihang left numerous writings on his region's history and culture, and on the political and social discrimination that he and others in his region faced from the central elite. This work explores a regional history and culture through the frames of microhistory and historical memory. Kim criticizes the historiographical problem of "otherizing" the northern region and fills a gap in Korean historiography—the lack of historical study of the northern region from a regional perspective, P'yongan Province in particular. The biographical format of this work engages readers in the investigation of a person's life within the changing world of his time and also creates a space where private and public intersect. Kim places Yi Sihang at the center of the historical stage while describing, analyzing, and reconstructing the world around him through his life story.
2H2O + O2 = 2H2O
Kwon C, (trans) HK. 2H2O + O2 = 2H2O. Larkspur, CA: Tamal Vista Publications; 2011.
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