Premodern Korea Lecture Series – Page 2 – GW Institute for Korean Studies

“A Unique Relationship: Koryŏ and the Mongol Yuan Empire”

Wednesday, November 17, 2021 | 7:00 p.m. – 8:30p.m. (EDT)
Thursday, November 18, 2021 | 9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. (KST)

Zoom Event

About the Event

The relationship that Koryŏ had with the Mongol Yuan empire was different from any prior relationships that Koryŏ had established with other China-based dynasties. The Koryŏ-Mongol relationship lasted for nearly two hundred years (1218-1392), and the dynamic between the two entities (Koryŏ and Yuan) shifted fundamentally as time progressed in the 13th and 14th centuries. A phase of military domination, political intervention, and economic pillaging later turned into an era filled with commodity trades, political interaction, and exchanges of thoughts and institutions, leading (and sometimes forcing) the Koryŏ people to come up with new ideas and perspectives to view the empire, the world, and most importantly themselves.

Speaker

Kang Hahn Lee (Ph.D. Seoul National University, 2007) is a Professor in the Korean History Department at the Academy of Korean Studies (Sŏngnam, Korea). He studies and teaches the history of the Koryŏ dynasty (918-1392), and its relationship with the Mongols (Yuan Empire). He is the author of Koryŏwa Wŏncheguk’ŭi Kyoyŏk’ŭi Yŏksa [Trade between Koryŏ and Yuan] (2013) and Koryŏ’ŭi Chagi, Yuan Chegukgwa mannada [Koryŏ Porcelain in contact with the Mongol Yuan Empire] (2016). Currently he also serves as the Chief Editor for The Review of Korean Studies, an English journal published by AKS.

Moderator

portrait of Jisoo Kim in professional attire

Jisoo M. Kim is Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures. She currently serves as the Director of the Institute for Korean Studies and the Co-Director of the East Asia National Resource Center at GW. She also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Korean Studies. She is a specialist in gender, law, and emotions in Korean history. Her broader research interests include gender and sexuality, crime and justice, forensic medicine, literary representations of the law, history of emotions, vernacular, and gender writing. She is the author of The Emotions of Justice: Gender, Status, and Legal Performance in Chosŏn Korea (University of Washington Press, 2015), which was awarded the 2017 James Palais Prize of the Association for Asian Studies. She is also the co-editor of The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation by JaHyun Kim Haboush (Columbia University Press, 2016). She is currently working on a book project tentatively entitled Sexual Desire, Crime, and Gendered Subjects: A History of Adultery Law in Korea. She received her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University.

“One Woman’s Take on Life in Chosŏn Korea”

Monday, September 27, 2021

10:00 AM – 11:30 AM EDT

Zoom Event

The Kyuhap ch’ongsŏ [The Encyclopedia of Daily Life] was compiled by Lady Yi Pinhŏgak (1759-1824) in the early years of the nineteenth century. The work was meant to be a guide to knowledge that womenfolk needed to properly manage a household and was passed on to her daughters and daughters-in-law. This translation covers two of the five volumes of the work that cover food and drink, and prenatal care, medicine, and first aid. The work gives great insight into what upper status women held to be important during this period and how they sought to achieve their goals. Lady Yi used various sources for her work including those written in Literary Chinese, Korean, and also oral knowledge that must have circulated widely at the time. The result is a work unlike any other that gives readers a small glimpse into the lives of upper status women during this time.

Michael J. Pettid is a Professor of Korean Studies at Binghamton University where he has taught since 2003. Prior to that, he received his doctorate from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and taught in Korea at the Academy of Korean Studies and Ewha Women’s University. The focus of his research and teaching is premodern Korea’s history, literature, religion, and culture. His most recent books are the co-edited volumes of Premodern Korean Literary Prose (Columbia University Press, 2018) and Death, Mourning, and the Afterlife in Korea: Critical Aspects of Death from Ancient to Contemporary Times (University of Hawaii Press, 2014); he also has monographs of Unyŏng-on: A Love Affair at the Royal Palace of Chosŏn Korea (Institute of East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley), and Korean Cuisine: An Illustrated History (Reaktion Books, 2008) among numerous other publications. His most recent publication is a co-authored an annotated translation of a nineteenth century guidebook for women, the Kyuhap ch’ongsŏ [The Encyclopedia of Daily Life] (University of Hawaii Press, 2021).

Category: Premodern Korea Lecture Series

11/17/2021 | Premodern Korea Lecture Series with Kang Hahn Lee