Typescript of Book Review of "Korea and Japan in East Asian History: A Tripolar Approach to East Asian History" by Hong, Wontack, published in Korean Studies 31: 79-82 (2007)
- ️https://soas.academia.edu/GinaBarnes
Related papers
2015
Co-constructing Empire in Early Chosŏn Korea: Knowledge Production and the Culture of Diplomacy, 1392-1592 Sixiang Wang Political, military, and economic power alone cannot explain how empires work, for empiremaking is also a matter of theories, narratives, ideas and institutions. To sustain themselves, empires both coerce and persuade. Tools of persuasion, however, were seldom the monopoly of those who sought to dominate, for they could also be contested and appropriated by those who sought to resist. This dissertation on Chosŏn Korea's (1392-1910) interactions with Ming China (1368-1644) offers a cultural history of interstate orders and diplomatic institutions in early modern Korea and East Asia. I illustrate how Chosŏn appropriated the persuasive technologies that sustained Ming empire as a political imaginary to contest Ming imperial claims and ultimately reshape imperial ideology. Chosŏn-Ming relations have long been described in terms of "tributary relations." This paradigm, as conceived by John K. Fairbank and others, understands these relations as the logical consequence of a shared Confucian ideology and illustrative of Korea's historical status as China's model tributary. These approaches privilege a metropole-centered vantage and have failed to account for Korean agency. They treat Korean envoy missions, ritual performances, and literary production as scripted gestures that can only reflect stable ideology. Meanwhile, they miss how these acts were contesting and transforming ideology in the process. I argue that the Chosŏn court in fact exercised enormous agency through these ritualized practices. The discourses of the Ming as moral empire and Korea as a loyal vassal, long held to be emblematic features of the tributary system, were a large part reified products of Chosŏn diplomatic strategy. They did not reflect a pre-existing i Co-constructing Empire in Early Chosŏn Korea Knowledge Production and the Culture of Diplomacy, 1392-1592
Sai, 2015
Despite the numerous empirical studies on colonial Korea many fundamental questions about Japanese colonialism require further examination. A new approach to understanding Japan’s colonial project is needed to overcome the limits of the colonial exploitation and colonial modernity thesis. A survey of recent works in colonial studies published in the English language can provide some fresh perspectives in this regard. Many of the recent studies on colonial Korea fully engage the historiography of modern Japanese history and provide important theoretical approaches into the questions of historical structure and agency. While not without their limitations, the results provide more complex understanding of the Japanese colonizers and the ambiguities of colonial rule. The arriving at a more comprehensive approach to colonial Korea will require considerable more effort, but the foundations for such an endeavor have finally emerged in the recent English language studies.
Japan's Colonization of Korea: Discourse and Power. By Alexis Dudden Book Review JJS 33.1 2007
Journal of Japanese Studies, 2007
Alexis Dudden starts with a promising premise that discourse-particularly that of international law-was as significant as politics, economics, and military power in enabling Japan's annexation of Korea. She sidesteps the issue of causality but "aims to confound the view that only military strength truly prevails in power politics" (p. 4). After a short introduction, she focuses on the Hague Incident. The next chapter reviews how the new vocabulary of international law infused Meiji foreign policy. Chapter three looks at how this "vocabulary" was used in the colonization of Korea. Chapter four, "Voices of Dissent," describes the activities of Tarui Tōkichi, Kōtoku Shūsui, and Hǒ Wi. Chapter five outlines Gustave Boissonade's contributions to Japanese modern law, legal discourses mobilized during the buildup to 1910, and the "105 Persons Incident." The final chapter, "Coda: A Knowledgeable Empire," is composed of brief sections on Nitobe Inazō, Tōyō Kyōkai, and "Concluding Notes." The section on the Hague Incident reminds us that the failure of Korean emissaries to gain entry into the official conference halls was not only due to politics, but also stemmed from larger issues of language and representation. This contrasts with some existing scholarship that overlooks the larger discourse of legality and civilization permeating the Hague conference. Chapter three's section on Durham Stevens is lively, making good use of quotations from the San Francisco Chronicle. The underused Hōritsu shinbun provides the basis for a brief discussion of two key figures in the construction of a "modern" legal regime in Korea, Ume Kenjirō and Kuratomi Yūzaburō. The occasional "theoretical" nods are welcome, although I would have preferred more extensive engagement with the relevant theories. Unfortunately, the moments of solid scholarship are undermined by problems that range from technical issues to thin contextualization and loose argumentation. To start with the technical, the index is sparse, characterized by omissions of major figures. Several endnotes lead to underdeveloped observations about contemporary parallels. Other endnotes for crucial assertions contain citations without page numbers. Particularly frustrating is Dudden's repeated omission of page numbers in major works by two leading scholars of the "annexation," Moriyama Shigenori and Unno Fukuju. This is highly problematic when she hints at major disagreements but fails to provide specifics. Transliteration errors are ubiquitous. Too many book and article titles (generally Korean ones) do not follow any standard system, while missing 202