‘I hope my book will give readers around the world a glimpse into Korean culture and will impact their lives, guiding and comforting them, even half as much as writing it changed mine.’ – Rhee Kun Hoo If You Live to One Hundred, You Might As Well Be Happy captivated South Korea, one of the fastest-ageing countries … [Read More]
Booklist: Health and wellbeing
How K-Dramas Can Transform Your Life: Powerful Lessons on Belongingness, Healing, and Mental Health
Discover the power of how K-Dramas can benefit your mental health and provide a sense of belonging In How K-Dramas Can Transform Your Life, celebrated licensed mental health professional Jeanie Y. Chang explores the powerful interrelationship between Korean dramas, mental health, and belongingness. In the book, you’ll explore what K-Dramas have to teach us about our own … [Read More]
I Need Art: Reality Isn’t Enough
A memoir in images from the iconic South Korean Sally Rooney illustrator Everything I feel from reading and listening to music I commit to paper in black pen And gradually, blot by blot, stroke by stroke, A new mode of expression emerges. At this point, it’s just scribbles in a diary Not yet reborn as … [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]
A Global History of Ginseng: Imperialism, Modernity and Orientalism
Sul’s history of the international ginseng trade reveals the cultural aspects of international capitalism and the impact of this single commodity on relations between East and West. Ginseng emerged as a major international commodity in the seventeenth century, when the East India Company began trading it westward. Europeans were drawn to the plant’s efficacy as … [Read More]
Body and Ki in GiCheon – Practices of Self-Cultivation in Contemporary Korea
This is the first English language book that studies contemporary practices of self-cultivation in South Korea called ki suryŏn (氣修練 training related to ki – “life energy”), reinvented in modernity similarly to Indian yoga and Chinese qigong. I focus on GiCheon, one of the ki suryŏn practices. By Victoria Ten (Jeon Yeon Hwa) https://www.ergon-shop.de/titel/body-and-ki-in-gicheon-id-89162/ [Read More]
Naming the Local: Medicine, Language, and Identity in Korea since the Fifteenth Century
From the publisher’s website: Naming the Local uncovers how Koreans domesticated foreign medical novelties on their own terms, while simultaneously modifying the Korea-specific expressions of illness and wellness to make them accessible to the wider network of scholars and audiences. Due to Korea’s geopolitical position and the intrinsic tension of medicine’s efforts to balance the local … [Read More]
It’s Madness: The Politics of Mental Health in Colonial Korea
From the publisher’s website: It’s Madness examines Korea’s years under Japanese colonialism, when mental health first became defined as a medical and social problem. As in most Asian countries, severe social ostracism, shame, and fear of jeopardizing marriage prospects compelled most Korean families to conceal the mentally ill behind closed doors. This book explores the impact … [Read More]
Archaeology of Psychotherapy in Korea: A study of Korean therapeutic work and professional growth
This is the first English book dedicated solely to the historical development of psychotherapy in Korea. It is an archaeological research of literature relating to the care and treatment of mind in Korean history in dialogue with spiritual, philosophical, cultural, social, and medical perspectives. It reviews the evolution of different approaches on mental illnesses covering … [Read More]
Reconstructing Bodies: Biomedicine, Health, and Nation-Building in South Korea Since 1945
From the publisher’s website: South Korea represents one of the world’s most enthusiastic markets for plastic surgery. The growth of this market is particularly fascinating as access to medical care and surgery arose only recently with economic growth since the 1980s. Reconstructing Bodies traces the development of a medical infrastructure in the Republic of Korea (ROK) from … [Read More]
Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea
Do the pressures of economic globalization undermine the welfare state? Contrary to the expectations of many analysts, Taiwan and South Korea have embarked on a new trajectory, toward a strengthened welfare state and universal inclusion. In Healthy Democracies, Joseph Wong offers a political explanation for health care reform in these two countries. He focuses specifically on the … [Read More]