From the publisher’s website: Elusive Belonging examines the post-migration experiences of Filipina marriage immigrants in rural South Korea. Marriage migration—crossing national borders for marriage—has attracted significant public and scholarly attention, especially in new destination countries, which grapple with how to integrate marriage migrants and their children and what that integration means for citizenship boundaries and a … [Read More]
Booklist: Gender studies (page 2)
Gendered Landscapes: Short Fiction by Modern and Contemporary Korean Women Novelists

Gendered Landscapes presents ten short stories and novellas by representative modern Korean women writers dating from the 1930s to the end of the 1990s. Signature pieces selected from the acclaimed novelists’ repertoire, these narratives address issues related to Korean women as gendered beings in a Confucian-governed patriarchal society. Thematically interlinked and compellingly articulated, they bring … [Read More]
Korean Women in Leadership

From the publisher’s website: The book focuses on the historical, political, economic, and cultural elements of Korea and the strong influence these have on women leaders in the nation. It examines challenges and opportunities for women leaders as they try to balance their professional and personal lives. A team of leading experts familiar with the … [Read More]
Translation and Modernization in East Asia in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

From the publisher’s website: This volume aims at studying the role played by translation in the modernization process of the East Asian countries. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many people saw the West as a model for modernization and hence modernization in East Asia was more often than not taken as a process … [Read More]
The Emotions of Justice: Gender, Status, and Legal Performance in Choson Korea

The Choson state (1392–1910) is typically portrayed as a rigid society because of its hereditary status system, slavery, and Confucian gender norms. However, The Emotions of Justice reveals a surprisingly complex picture of a judicial system that operated in a contradictory fashion by discriminating against subjects while simultaneously minimizing such discrimination. Jisoo Kim contends that … [Read More]
From Domestic Women to Sensitive Young Men: Translating the Individual in Early Colonial Korea

From the publisher’s website: The notion of the individual was initially translated into Korean near the end of the nineteenth century and took root during the early years of Japanese colonial influence. Yoon Sun Yang argues that the first literary iterations of the Korean individual were prototypically female figures appearing in the early colonial domestic novel—a genre … [Read More]
Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iryŏp

From the publisher’s website: Why and how do women engage with Buddhism and philosophy? The present volume aims to answer these questions by examining the life and philosophy of a Korean Zen Buddhist nun, Kim Iryŏp (1896–1971). The daughter of a pastor, Iryŏp began questioning Christian doctrine as a teenager. In a few years, she … [Read More]
Curative Violence: Rehabilitating Disability, Gender, and Sexuality in Modern Korea

In Curative Violence Eunjung Kim examines what the social and material investment in curing illnesses and disabilities tells us about the relationship between disability and Korean nationalism. Kim uses the concept of curative violence to question the representation of cure as a universal good and to understand how nonmedical and medical cures come with violent effects that … [Read More]
Classical Writings of Korean Women

This work is a collection of essays travelogues written by women during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). The work ranges from a eulogy for a broken needle to a travelogue describing various trips to scenic spots on the Korean peninsula, including to the Keum-Gang Mountains. Now available in English, this collection gives us a sampler of … [Read More]
Economic Consequences of Divorce in Korea

From the publisher’s website: Korean divorce law still adheres to fault-based divorce. According to a majority of the Supreme Court, the main reason for not admitting a no-fault policy is that the preconditions for systems for financially protecting the spouse and children after divorce have not yet been satisfied in Korea. However, there is not … [Read More]
Decentering Citizenship: Gender, Labor, and Migrant Rights in South Korea

From the publisher’s website: Decentering Citizenship follows three groups of Filipina migrants’ struggles to belong in South Korea: factory workers claiming rights as workers, wives of South Korean men claiming rights as mothers, and hostesses at American military clubs who are excluded from claims—unless they claim to be victims of trafficking. Moving beyond laws and policies, … [Read More]
Routledge Handbook of Modern Korean History

From the publisher’s website: Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century when Korea became entangled in the world of modern imperialism and the old social, economic and political order began to change; this handbook brings together cutting edge scholarship on major themes in Korean History. Contributions by experts in the field cover the Late Choson and Colonial … [Read More]
Trafficking Women in Korea: Filipina migrant entertainers

From the publisher’s website: Based on in-depth ethnographic work, this book presents a study of Filipinas trafficked to South Korea, focusing on women who entered South Korea as migrant entertainers and subsequently became deployed in exploitative work environments around US military bases there. It contributes to the extension of our knowledge about human trafficking in … [Read More]
Protest Politics and the Democratization of South Korea: Strategies and Roles of Women

From the publisher’s website: This book is about protest politics and social movements led by a group of women, the “Mothers,” who were inadvertently drawn into South Korea’s democratization movement from the 1970s to the 2000s. The Mothers were female family members of political dissidents of varying backgrounds and ages—college students, political and religious leaders, … [Read More]
Living on Your Own: Single Women, Rental Housing, and Post-Revolutionary Affect in Contemporary South Korea

From the publisher’s website: An ethnography of young, single women struggling to live independently in South Korea. Living on Your Own is an ethnography of young, single women in South Korea who seek to live independently. Using extensive interviews, along with media analysis and archival research, Jesook Song traces the women’s difficulties in achieving residential autonomy. … [Read More]
Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun

From the publisher’s website: The life and work of Kim Iryŏp (1896–1971) bear witness to Korea’s encounter with modernity. A prolific writer, Iryŏp reflected on identity and existential loneliness in her poems, short stories, and autobiographical essays. As a pioneering feminist intellectual, she dedicated herself to gender issues and understanding the changing role of women … [Read More]