Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
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In this study, An Kuk-sŏn (also known as Chŏngang,1876-1926), a leading writer of the Greater Korean Empire period, is regarded as one prototype of Korean reformist intellectuals in the face of the...Show moreIn this study, An Kuk-sŏn (also known as Chŏngang,1876-1926), a leading writer of the Greater Korean Empire period, is regarded as one prototype of Korean reformist intellectuals in the face of the global expansion of imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Based on An’s Chŏngch’i Wŏnnon (政治原論, Basic Principles of Politics, 1907), the first modern political science textbook in Korea, the study explores the adoption of modern Western political science, which some of these intellectuals regarded as a means of national survival. This study also revalorizes Chŏngch’i Wŏnnon and the act of translation, the most common way of learning the West yet has been undermined in the discourse of nationalist historiography, by applying the frameworks of translation studies.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
closed access
This study attempts to reconstitute the trajectory of the reception of Western classical music in the late-colonial era Korea by employing Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital. How did the...Show moreThis study attempts to reconstitute the trajectory of the reception of Western classical music in the late-colonial era Korea by employing Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital. How did the recipient classes acquire and secure Western musical taste as a new form of cultural capital and what kinds of aspects facilitated this process? In order to shed light on the multilayered colonial context behind this phenomenon, Arjun Appadurai’s five ‘scapes’ concept is applied to the following method of historical research: to examine, evaluate, and analyze official documents, contemporary newspapers, magazine articles, and advertisements, as well as previous studies on the history of Western music in Korea. This approach examines the reception of Western music from various angles. This research is a study of both ‘colonial modernity’ and the sociology of music, grafting the research framework of area studies onto that of musicology.Show less
