Virtue That Matters is a groundbreaking exploration of the intricate dynamics of chastity culture in Chosŏn Korea from 1392 to 1910, shedding light on its political, legal, social, and cultural significance. In this book, Jungwon Kim demonstrates how an emphasis on female chastity came to pervade society as it intertwined with state ideology and elite … [Read More]
Booklist: Gender studies
Mediating Gender in Post-Authoritarian South Korea
Mediating Gender in Post-Authoritarian South Korea focuses on the relationship between media representation and gender politics in South Korea. Its chapters feature notable voices of South Korea’s burgeoning sphere of gender critique enabled by social media, doing what no other academic volume has yet accomplished in the sphere of Anglophone studies on this topic. Seeking … [Read More]
The Making of Modern Subjects: Public Discourses on Korean Female Spectators in the Early Twentieth Century
Under Japanese colonial rule in the early 20th century, Korean women began to expand their realm from the domestic to the public sphere. Sung Un Gang examines how the women’s gaze was reimagined in public discourse as they began attending plays and movies, and investigates the complex negotiation process surrounding women’s public presence. As the … [Read More]
Korean Women Philosophers and the Ideal of a Female Sage: Essential Writings of Im Yungjidang and Gang Jeongildang
Korean Women Philosophers and the Ideal of a Female Sage introduces the lives and ideas of two female Korean Confucian philosophers from the late Joseon Dynasty (18th-19th century), Im Yunjidang (1721-1793) and Gang Jeongildang (1772-1832), examining how their writings contribute to contemporary philosophical inquiry. Both philosophers are known for arguing that women are as capable as … [Read More]
Women We Love: Femininities and the Korean Wave
Women We Love: Femininities and the Korean Wave is an edited volume exploring femininities in and around the Korean Wave since 2000. While studies on the Korean Wave are abundant, there is a dearth of thought put toward the female-identifying stars, characters, and fans who shape and lead this crucial cultural movement. This collection of … [Read More]
Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital
A cutting-edge journalistic exposé of self-care consumerism, using the extreme case South Korea to both celebrate the astounding growth of K-Beauty and South Korean pop culture as a global export and examine the dark implications for women in a looks-obsessed patriarchy, in a debut that asks the question: What is the future of beauty? From … [Read More]
Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea’s Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women’ s Rights Worldwide
An eye-opening firsthand account of the ongoing and trailblazing feminist movement in South Korea—one that the world should be watching. Since the beginning of the #MeToo movement, tens of thousands of people in South Korea have taken to the street, and many more brave individuals took a stand, to end a decades-long abortion ban and … [Read More]
Among Women across Worlds: North Korea in the Global Cold War
In Among Women across Worlds, Suzy Kim excavates the transnational linkages between women of North Korea and a worldwide women’s movement. Women of Asia, especially those espousing communism, are often portrayed as victims or pawns of a patriarchal Confucian state. Kim undercuts this standard analysis through detailed archival work in the international women’s press, and finds that … [Read More]
Redefining Multicultural Families in South Korea: Reflections and Future Directions
Redefining Multicultural Families in South Korea provides an in-depth look at the lives of families in Korea that include immigrants. Ten original chapters in this volume, written by scholars in multiple social science disciplines and covering different methodological approaches, aim to reinvigorate contemporary discussions about these multicultural families. Specially, the volume expands the scope of … [Read More]
Korean Teachers
Winner of the Hankyoreh Literature Award, Seo Su-jin’s debut novel follows four Korean language lecturers at Seoul’s prestigious H University over the course of an academic year. Readers will spend one season with each of the four protagonists—Seon-yi in the spring, Mi-ju in the summer, Ga-eun in the autumn, and Han-hee in the winter—getting a … [Read More]
Here Comes the Flood: Perspectives of Gender, Sexuality, and Stereotype in the Korean Wave
This collection breaks down the stereotypes often expected of Korean popular culture, specifically examining issues of gender, sexuality, and stereotype in a variety of cultural products including K-pop, K-drama, and cover dancing through the lens of how “Koreanness” can be defined. A diverse range of of contributors showcase how Hallyu, or the Korean Wave, began … [Read More]
Women in the Sky: Gender and Labor in the Making of Modern Korea
From the publisher’s website: Women in the Sky examines Korean women factory workers’ century-long activism, from the 1920s to the present, with a focus on gender politics both in the labor movement and in the larger society. It highlights several key moments in colonial and postcolonial Korean history when factory women commanded the attention of the wider … [Read More]
Prostitutes, Hostesses, and Actresses at the Edge of the Japanese Empire: Fragmenting History
Analysing materials from literature and film, this book considers the fates of women who did not or could not buy into the Japanese imperial ideology of “good wives, wise mothers” in support of male empire-building. Although many feminist critics have articulated women’s active roles as dutiful collaborators for the Japanese empire, male-dominated narratives of empire-building … [Read More]
Mysterious Pyongyang: Cosmetics, Beauty Culture and North Korea
From the publisher’s website: This book is written with the belief that the peaceful unification of Korean Peninsula will be upon us on the day that every woman in North Korea uses South Korean and global cosmetics. The authors focus on understanding the intentions behind the three leaders of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il … [Read More]
Imperatives of Care: Women and Medicine in Colonial Korea
From the publisher’s website: In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Korea, public health priorities in maternal and infant welfare privileged the new nation’s reproductive health and women’s responsibility for care work to produce novel organization of services in hospitals and practices in the home. The first monograph on this topic, Imperatives of Care places women … [Read More]
Gender Politics at Home and Abroad: Protestant Modernity in Colonial-Era Korea
From the publisher’s website: Hyaeweol Choi examines the formation of modern gender relations in Korea from a transnational perspective. Diverging from a conventional understanding of ‘secularization’ as a defining feature of modernity, Choi argues that Protestant Christianity, introduced to Korea in the late nineteenth century, was crucial in shaping modern gender ideology, reforming domestic practices … [Read More]