Premodern East Asia Research Articles

An Overview of Interaction within Pre-modern East Asian Region Through Buddhist Impact

Scholars have researched the impact of Buddhism on pre-modern and modern East Asia from different aspects, both within and between politics (states since the late 19th century): art, ideology, cultural practice, and food. Among existing academic literature on Buddhisms impact on the interaction between polities within East Asia, the expansion of certain material cultural elements and cultural concepts and foodways are among the major focuses. This paper employs the anthropological understanding of non-material and material components of culture. The working anthropological definition of religion is combined, to summarize and categorize the existing research on Buddhisms impact on pre-modern East Asian culture. Understanding culture in its material and non-material components, and its relationship with religion through time and space leads to this article to structure the relationship between Buddhism and pre-modern East Asian cultures into its expansion, its development, and its impact on different subcategories of a culture. The overview suggests an increase in future research on the multidirectional interaction of Buddhist pre-modern East Asian cultures and Buddhisms influence on greater foodway within different pre-modern East Asian societies.

A Study of the Reasons Why Korean’s Sought to Purchase Books from China during the Chosŏn Dynasty (1392-1910)

<p>眾所皆知，今日的韓國、日本、越南各地收藏數量驚人的漢籍（中國刊本）。追溯此些國家搜求漢籍的歷程與緣由，不少學者歸諸「慕華」，即搜求漢籍出於外國人仰慕中國／中華文化的心理。慕華確實立足一定的史料基礎，也存在抱持此種想法而收買漢籍的例子。但是東亞各國對待中國的態度，絕非始終如一，而係複雜漫長的變化過程。本文旨在以朝鮮為中心，探究明清時期的朝鮮人何以代代相承，持續搜求漢籍。這股需要漢籍的力量來源可概分為三，一、長時段的因素，如知識養成、人才培育、制度設計、出版環境等；二、偶發性的事件，尤其是戰爭；三、古代東亞各國必須面對的實際需要，即與中國進行外交往來，需要一定的漢學素養。本文結合前述三方面的考察，試圖在慕華之外開闢新的視角，理解朝鮮人搜求漢籍的背景與緣由。</p> <p> </p><p>As is well known, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam possess astonishingly voluminous collections of Chinese books that were printed in China. When tracing the processes and reasons why these countries sought out Chinese publications, many scholars have attributed this phenomenon to the mentality of muhua, that is, the admiration of China or Chinese culture by foreigners. Muhua was arguably one established aspect of the historical data, and there are examples of individuals who adhered to this idea in their collecting of Chinese books. However, among East Asian countries the attitudes toward China were neither static nor unified and underwent a complex and lengthy series of changes.<br />In focusing on Chosŏn, this article aims to explore why generation after generation of Koreans living through the Ming and Qing dynasties continued to seek Chinese books. What drove the desire for Chinese books can be broadly categorized into three aspects: firstly, there were long-term factors such as the need to nurture knowledge, cultivate talent, design institutions, and improve the publishing environment; secondly there were unexpected events, especially wars; and thirdly, there were the practical needs each and every premodern East Asian country must face, specifically diplomatic exchanges with China, which required a certain level of sinological proficiency. In fleshing out these three aspects, this study will offer new perspectives beyond that of cultural admiration, to foster a better understanding of the background and reasons behind the pursuit of Chinese books in Chosŏn Korea.</p> <p> </p>

‘Getting Asia right’: de-essentializing China's hegemony in historical Asia

AbstractInternational Relations (IR) scholars have taken China's presumed hegemony in pre-modern East Asia as an ideal case to ‘undermine’ the field's Eurocentrism. If Eurocentric IR is guilty of ‘getting Asia wrong’, do students of historical Asia ‘get Asia right’? Analysts should avoid exotifying differences between the West and the East and ‘exchanging Eurocentrism for Sinocentrism’. This article tries to ‘get Asia [more] right’ by ‘disaggregating’ and then ‘reassembling’ taken-for-granted concepts by time, space, and relationality. When ‘Confucianism’ is understood to justify both war and peace in competition with other thoughts, it does not dictate peace among East Asian states or conflicts across the Confucian–nomadic divide. When ‘China’ is unpacked, it does not sit on top of an Asian hierarchy. When Korea's, Vietnam's, and Japan's views of their relations with China are examined rather than presumed, cultural legitimacy is thinned out. When ‘Asia’ is broadened to cover webs of relations beyond East Asia to Central Asia, Confucianism recedes in centrality and pan-Asian phenomena including Buddhism and the steppe tradition come to the fore. The article concludes that a better challenge to Eurocentrism is not to search for cultural differences but to locate Eurasian similarities that erase European superiority.

The Substance of Fiction: Literary Objects in China, 1550–1775 By Sophie Volpp. Premodern East Asia New Horizons. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. x + 245 pp. $140.00 (cloth), $35.00 (paper), $34.99 (eBook)

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The exchange of medicine with Japan during the Koryo Dynasty era and its characteristics -A case of 'East Asian Medicine'.

In this article, I reviewed the exchange of medicine between the Koryo Dynasty and Japan during the Koryo Dynasty. Compared to the exchange of medicine during the Three Kingdoms or the early Joseon Dynasty, medicine between Korea and Japan was loosely affected each other during the Koryo Dynasty. This characteristic of medical history with Japan during the Koryo Dynasty corresponded to the overall low density of exchanges between the two countries. In this paper, the exchange of medicine during the entire Koryo period was divided into 4 periods, and medical records in Korea and Japan were discussed in terms of medical personnel, medical knowledge, and pharmaceutical materials. During the Koryo Dynasty, Korea was interested in Japan's medical personnel and pharmaceutical materials, and Japan was interested in Korea's medical knowledge and pharmaceutical materials. When limited to the Koryo Dynasty, it is difficult to determine the superiority or inferiority of pharmaceutical materials, medical personnel, and medical knowledge between Korea and Japan. Without frequent contact to compare the level of medical care, each country only accepted the other country's medical care within the necessary range. This means that the exchange of medicine between Koryo and Japan did not flow only in one direction. In addition, I proposed to understand the pre-modern East Asian world, including Korea-Japan relations, by using the concept of political bodies instead of the concept of state. In other words, it is necessary to call the subject of action that independently judges and executes foreign relations while maintaining a high degree of autonomy in decision-making as 'political bodies', and utilizes this concept to interpret the pre-modern East Asian world complexly. The concept of political bodies is also useful for understanding the exchange of medicine among the three East Asian countries.

Ruminations on the meaning and nature of ritual in the historical context of China–A theoretical attempt to understand the tribute system as a ritual in East Asia

AbstractThe mainstream studies of the East Asian tributary system have been exhibiting a stance that tends to stress the importance of Confucianism in forming and sustaining the tributary system throughout its long history. However, there are still several questions (especially those of a theoretical nature) that historians have yet to answer: How could Confucianism have contributed to the formation and sustenance of this tributary system? Why could this Confucian-based tributary system be recognized and employed in relations with non-Confucian frontier tribes? Why could this system have worked with both the nomadic tribes on the northern frontier and the South-East Asian countries that were neither Confucian nor nomadic? Drawing on the results of ritual studies in anthropology, Chinese historiography and Chinese philosophy, this author seeks a broader methodology that can be used to conceptualize the tributary ritual and its constitutive power structure, which forms the foundation of the central part of the East Asian world order. This paper is a theoretical attempt to find a non-Sinocentric way to interpret the formally Sinocentric tribute system in premodern East Asia.

“Use Me as Your Test!”

Cutting deeply into a patient’s body posed a problem for medical deontology in premodern East Asia, defined by the Confucian virtue of “humaneness” and a preference for noninvasive cures. How did Japanese physicians reconcile “humaneness” with their interest in invasive European surgical techniques? This essay offers answers through the tale of Kan (1743–1804) and her physician, Hanaoka Seishū (1760–1835). Inspired by the writings of the German physician Lorenz Heister (1683–1758), Hanaoka attempted to remove a cancerous tumor from Kan’s breast in 1803—the first reliably documented operation of its kind in East Asia. In the process, Hanaoka outlined a new reasoning by which the testing of untested foreign techniques could be construed as “humane.” While scholarship on the translation of European medicine in East Asia has focused on epistemic shifts, I argue that translation was also about the renegotiation of ethical relations, reconfiguring patient-practitioner roles and boundaries of the morally permissible.

Heroic monks and villainous pirates: an inquiry into monastic Buddhist warfare in sixteenth-century China

ABSTRACT This article explores the involvement of Shaolin monks in military campaigns against the so-called ‘Japanese Pirates’ (wokou) in 1550s Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. While previous scholarship has only touched briefly on the course and scope of the campaigns, this contribution analyzes the military training, fighting tactics, and actual warfare of Shaolin (and other) monks in the course of these conflicts. Drawing on late Ming historical evidences from chronicles, pen notes, local gazetteers, and previously untouched material, I demonstrate that the monastics in question possessed both outstanding individual fighting skills and above-average military knowledge. Employing strategic formations, battle tactics, and professional modes of warfare, the ‘monk soldiers’ (sengbing) were able to immortalize themselves as brave and righteous patriots. The article thus digs deeper into the entanglements of military and religious circles in late imperial China, a topic that needs to be explored in future scholarship. Ending with a brief excursion to sixteenth-century Korea, the article concludes that comparative research yields important insights of how to better understand Buddhist involvement in military actions in premodern East Asia.

The Collecting and Study of Pre-Modern East Asian Maps in Europe and the United States

After fifty years, we are revisiting R.A. Skelton’s 1966 study of the collecting of early maps in Europe and the United States for the celebration of the Nineteenth Nebenzahl lecture series at the Newberry Library, Chicago. In that study, Skelton discussed who collected maps, where some of those maps have been and where they are today, what it meant to assemble map collections, and how we understood and studied maps and mapping fifty years ago. Skelton, however, examined primarily the collecting of European and American mapping during the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. This study will address one neglected area of collecting and studying, that of the maps of East Asia, i.e. those of China, Korea and Japan in Europe and the United States exclusively, with the understanding that the majority of extant maps of East Asia are currently housed in respective national, provincial, municipal and university libraries and museums in East Asia. And only pre-modern East Asian maps, those produced in East Asia for an East Asian audience prior to 1900 are discussed, as that generally represents the historical moment when transitions from imperial and royal rule to modern nation-state governance occurred in East Asia.

From China to Japan and Back Again: An Energetic Example of Bidirectional Sino-Japanese Esoteric Buddhist Transmission

Sino-Japanese religious discourse, more often than not, is treated as a unidirectional phenomenon. Academic treatments of pre-modern East Asian religion usually portray Japan as the passive recipient of Chinese Buddhist traditions, while explorations of Buddhist modernization efforts focus on how Chinese Buddhists utilized Japanese adoptions of Western understandings of religion. This paper explores a case where Japan was simultaneously the receptor and agent by exploring the Chinese revival of Tang-dynasty Zhenyan. This revival—which I refer to as Neo-Zhenyan—was actualized by Chinese Buddhist who received empowerment (Skt. abhiṣeka) under Shingon priests in Japan in order to claim the authority to found “Zhenyan” centers in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and even the USA. Moreover, in addition to utilizing Japanese Buddhist sectarianism to root their lineage in the past, the first known architect of Neo-Zhenyan, Wuguang (1918–2000), used energeticism, the thermodynamic theory propagated by the German chemist Freidrich Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932; 1919 Nobel Prize for Chemistry) that was popular among early Japanese Buddhist modernists, such as Inoue Enryō (1858–1919), to portray his resurrected form of Zhenyan as the most suitable form of Buddhism for the future. Based upon the circular nature of esoteric transmission from China to Japan and back to the greater Sinosphere and the use of energeticism within Neo-Zhenyan doctrine, this paper reveals the sometimes cyclical nature of Sino-Japanese religious influence. Data were gathered by closely analyzing the writings of prominent Zhenyan leaders alongside onsite fieldwork conducted in Taiwan from 2011–2019.

BECOMING GUANYIN: ARTISTIC DEVOTION OF BUDDHIST WOMEN IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA. By YuhangLi. Premodern East Asia. New Horizons. New York: Columbia University Press, 2020. Pp. xii + 299. Hardback, $65.00.

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 47, Issue 2 p. 253-254 Short Reviews Of Recent Publications: East Asia BECOMING GUANYIN: ARTISTIC DEVOTION OF BUDDHIST WOMEN IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA. By Yuhang Li. Premodern East Asia. New Horizons. New York: Columbia University Press, 2020. Pp. xii + 299. Hardback, $65.00. First published: 08 August 2021 https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.15299Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume47, Issue2June 2021Pages 253-254 RelatedInformation

"전근대 동아시아의 연령차별주의 : 일본과 한국의 엇갈린 불교 기로 우화의 궤적"

본 논문은 불교 우화 <기로국>이 고대에서 현대까지 일본과 한국에서 전승되는 과정을 비교·분석하여 전근대 한국의 노인차별주의의 양상을 밝히고자 한다. 조선시대에 유교는 지배적 이데올로기였기 때문에 효는 신성불가침의 가치였다. 효의 보편적인 영향 때문에 부모를 해치는 행위는 상상조차 불가능했다. 다만 폭력까지 일으킬 수 있는 세대 간의 갈등은 인간사회의 보편적 현상으로서 고려나 조선시대에도 존재했지만 (《고려사》나 《실록》에서 수많은 부모 살해 사건이 기록되어 있다), 이와 관련된 구체적인 감정이 기록으로 남은 사례는 없었다. 한국의 경우와 반대로, 일본에서는 이런 감정을 조금 더 자유롭게 표현할 수 있었다. 노화된 신체가 부정(不淨)이라고 생각했기 때문에 노인은 사회에서 배제되었다. 이들은 특히 의례공간에 진입할 수 없었고, 심지어 노년출가를 통하여 가족과 분리되었다. 다만 중세 일본에 노년에 대한 태도는 부정적인 것만은 아니었다. 오히려 숭배와 혐오 사이의 “애매한 영역”을 차지하였다. 일본의 기로국 우화에서는 아들이 어머니를 버린 다음에 후회를 하고 다시 찾거나 아니면 천벌을 받는다. 제2차 세계대전 이후 “나라야마 부시코”란 소설과 영화에서 기로국 이야기가 되살아 나면서 이런 종교적 성격의 응징은 사라진다. 소설가나 감독이 상상한 고대 사회는 야만적이고 무자비하다. 그래서 이들은 70세 되면 무조건 산에서 버려야 된다고 줄거리를 새로만 들었다. 어떤 이유 때문에 이렇게 잔인하게 묘사되는지 그 이유는 불분명하지만, 이런 혁신 덕분에 기로국 이야기의 폭력적인 기원이 다시 부각되며 노인 독자의 입장에서 이 이야기를 새롭게 볼 수 있도록 한다. 그리고 일본 사회의 연령주의를 분석한 결과를 한국 사회에 적용하면 노인차별의 양상을 새롭게 바라보는 관점을 얻을 수 있다. 우선 중세 일본과 마찬가지로 고려시대에도 병든 사람이나 노인을 격리하는 관습이 확인되며, 이것은 노인차별의 결과로 재해석할 수 있다. 둘째로, 일본의 오바스테 서술에서 특히 노년여성은 혐오와 배제의 대상이라는 점을 고려한다면, 조선시대 여성―특히 미망인의 경우―의 사회적 배제 또는 자살 권유도 노년차별 통해 해명할 수 있다. 마지막으로 20세기에 전승된 고려장 민담을 분석하여 노년 서술자가 버려지는 두려움을 “생매”(生埋)로 표현하는 것을 여기서 처음 확인하였다. 20세기 초반에 “고려장”을 “생매”라고 생각했던 것은 조선 시대부터 시작된 고려시대 장례식에 대한 잘못된 이해에서 비롯됐을 수 있다.

Writing-Mediated Interaction Face-to-Face: Sinitic Brushtalk (漢文筆談) as an Age-Old Lingua-Cultural Practice in Premodern East Asian Cross-Border Communication

Abstract In Western societies, speaking is construed as an interactive social activity while writing is widely perceived as a solo or private endeavor. Such a functional dichotomy did not apply to the “Sinographic Cosmopolis” in premodern East Asia, however. Based on selected documented examples of writing-mediated cross-border communication spanning over a thousand years from the Sui dynasty to the late Ming dynasty, this paper demonstrates that Hanzi 漢字, a morphographic, non-phonographic script, was commonly used by literati of classical Chinese or Literary Sinitic to engage in “silent conversation” as a substitute for speech. Except for a “drifting” record co-constructed by Korean maritime officials and Chinese “boat people,” all the other examples featured Chinese–Japanese interaction. While synchronous cross-border communication in written Chinese has been reported in scholarly works in East Asian studies (published more commonly in East Asian languages than in English or other Western languages), to our knowledge no attempt has been made to examine such writing-mediated interaction from a linguistic or discourse-pragmatic point of view. Writing-mediated interaction enacted through Sinitic brushtalk (漢文筆談) is compatible with transactional and interactional language functions as in speech. In premodern and early modern East Asia, it was most commonly conducted using brush, ink, and paper, but it could also take place using a pointed object and a flat surface covered with a fluid substance like sand, finger-drawing using water or tea on a table, and so forth. Such an interactional pattern appears to be unparalleled in other regional lingua francas written with a phonographic script such as Latin and Arabic. To facilitate research into the extent to which this interactional pattern is script-specific to morphographic sinograms, a “morphographic hypothesis” is proposed. The theoretical significance of writing-mediated interaction as a third or even fourth known modality of synchronous communication—after speech and (tactile) sign language—will be briefly discussed.

명초 외교제도의 성립과 그 기원 - 고려-몽골 관계의 유산과 그 전유(專有) -

The so-called ‘Tributary System’ has been at the crux of an idea which was considered to be most relevant in explaining the nature of premodern East Asian international order. It was widely believed that this particular system inherited the structure and logic of the Chinese Feudal system from the Zhou dynasty, and was firmly established in the early years of Ming. The Ming dynasty, which became the new presider of Chinese hegemony in 1368, had to notify its neighbors the advent of a new order. So Ming claimed that, ‘in the grand tradition of Zhou Feudalism,’ its leader would stand as emperor and treat adjacent countries accordingly as lords. Yet the methods they eventually employed, such as receiving tributes, bestowing titles, guest ritual, and distributing calenders(曆書), were all what came before within the boundaries of the Goryeo-Mongol relations, which had been established and maintained for a long time since the Jeongdong Haengseong(征東行省) provincial government was installed on the Korean peninsula by the Mongol empire. Interestingly, modeling the Ming-Goryeo relations after the old Yuan-Goryeo relationship was initially suggested by Goryeo itself. Ming only accepted such offer, and then chose to glorify it with some grand Chinese tradition. In other words, the diplomatic protocols established in the early Ming years was a mere revisit to the legacy left by the earlier Goryeo-Mongol relationship. Ming is often cited as the dynasty which formulated the most Chinese-centric international order ever. Yet what contributed the most to such formula and even more so than Ming itself ever did was in fact the long gone Mongol Yuan empire. If Goryeo did not relay such Yuan legacy (to which itself also belonged) to Ming, the so-called Tributary System as we know it may not have formed at all in the first place.

The Shadow of Prosperity: Fake Goods and Anxiety in Song Urban Space

The Shadow of Prosperity:Fake Goods and Anxiety in Song Urban Space Fan Lin In summer 2018, an exhibition at the National Palace Museum in Taipei, featuring paintings that had been forged in late Ming Suzhou 蘇州, provoked public interest with its playful touch.1 Although it is certainly not a conventional practice for a museum to endorse the value of forged artworks, the exhibition echoed recent scholarly interest in the topic of forgery in this period of Chinese art history.2 It is worth noting that the title of the exhibition, Wei hao wu 僞好物 (Spurious Finery), actually derives from the Song dynasty. Mi Fu 米芾 (1051–1107), the most refined calligrapher and connoisseur of the Northern Song, used this word to assess a few Tang-dynasty tracing copies of the calligraphy of earlier masters, including Zhong You 鍾繇 (151–230) and Wang Xizhi 王羲之 (303–361).3 This seemingly oxymoronic combination of wei 僞 and hao 好 best captures the complexity of producing and consuming forged artworks. As scholars across various cultural contexts have observed, setting aside the purpose of disguise, forgeries often reflect the same societal [End Page 269] interests as authentic works. In other words, they are candid, yet paradoxical expressions of the materiality and value of the authentic.4 To some extent, this is also true of the great magnitude of adulterated and counterfeited goods during the Song, which are pervasively recorded in official histories, government documents, notebooks (biji 筆記), and treatises (pulu 譜錄). Reducing this phenomenon to mere moral corruption would undermine the complexity of this issue. Rather, I consider that the counterfeit, as a simulacrum of the authentic and not necessarily its "evil twin," constituted an undercurrent of Song material culture and provided momentum to the production of knowledge that was in opposition to fakes and fakery. The Song witnessed an upsurge in discussions and debates about truth and falsehood. Chad Hansen was among the first scholars to identify this development in Chinese intellectual history, although his argument that the notion of "truth" was influenced by the arrival of Buddhism has since been disputed.5 Stephen West saw the making and appreciation of mock food as a new aesthetic pursuit in the Song, which was parallel to performance art in its emulation of the "real" and "authentic."6 In the same vein, Robert Hymes contended that what was novel during the Song period was not the absolute and abstract "truth," but a prevailing curiosity and urge to find out the factual status of narratives.7 Both West and Hymes associated the realization of truth and falsehood with the larger context of the rise of urban and commercial culture. Guillaume Carré and Christian Lamouroux have made a welcome contribution to the study of fake goods in the premodern East Asian context and placed special focus on the role of moral rhetoric as well as government regulations and their constraints.8 Built on these scholars' observations, this [End Page 270] article focuses on the materiality and the practice of fake goods in particular, rather than on ideas revolving around the false during the Song dynasty. Some key words appeared often in the reporting of forgery. The word lan 濫 (sometimes hanglan 行濫) was a term that had appeared in legal codes from the Tang onwards and referred to adulterated and unqualified goods.9 During the Song period, three other terms were used to refer to forged goods. The word yan 贋 especially referred to forged writing in various formats, including poems, prose, calligraphy, and rubbings.10 The words jia 假 and wei 偽 were used more interchangeably to refer to falsehood, deception, forgery, and pretense. In the context of forging objects, wei implies an inherent moral judgement, suggesting the intention to counterfeit. Deriving from its original meaning, "to rely on" or "to borrow," jia has the connotation of simulating the authentic or original form, foregrounding the relationship between the original and the copy.11 Being jia could be either artificial or deceptive, as in jiashan 假山 ("artificial hill") made of rocks from Lake Tai 太湖 or jiayu 假玉 ("fake jade") made of fired stones, lead, and other ingredients.12 In this article, "fake" or "forged" goods will refer to things that not only were produced to defraud or deceive but also were...

전근대 동아시아의 무역과 화폐 : 12~13세기의 사례를 중심으로

Studies of pre-modern societies should focus on the differences in the values and structure of the workings of said societies in comparison to the present, instead of whether they contributed to shaping today’s society. This is because doing so may provide useful implications for humanity to explore new social systems. Naturally, this is not to advocate a return to any pre-modern social system. In order to flexibly adapt to ever-changing circumstances, it is helpful to understand that, in the past, there existed operational mechanisms that are entirely different from today’s mechanisms, and that they were rooted in their own rationality.<BR> In this respect, this paper analyzes the nature of trade and currency in pre-modern East Asia, more specifically during the 12th and 13th centuries. Trade in the pre-modern era was not conducted for the purpose of gaining revenues, but rather viewed as a means to obtain necessary goods from other countries while exporting surplus goods. This resulted in the adoption of imposing customs duties on imports only. In addition, importing and consuming goods was not regarded as a serious problem in pre-modern times, in cases where certain goods could only be acquired from another country. This paper identifies cases where foreign currencies were imported and used as local currency. A comparative analysis of cases from Goryeo and Japan is conducted while taking into account the fact that imported currencies served different functions depending on the political and economic characteristics of the importing country.

Border historicity and ethnographic rupture: Pirates, Korean Kings and borderlanders in transnational Tsushima Island, Japan

ABSTRACTTsushima’s community festival commemorates Tsushima’s admirable borderland diplomacy in the pre-modern East Asian politics. This indigenous historicization in performance, nevertheless, fails to resonate with ethnographic reality: anthropological fieldwork revealed that local culture differs considerably from postcolonial ritual imaginings and historicity, illuminating a discontinuity between the past performed and the present observed. A rupture exists between borderland imagery as a coherent Japanese state boundary and the ethnographic reality of an uneven liminal frontier between Korea and Japan. In order to make sense of the ethnographic ruptures, this article constructs the border-centric ethnohistory through the lens of and experiences of the border, defying a state-centric past. I de-essentialize border-state relationship, accentuating border spontaneity and contingency between and beyond the power of sovereignty – a paradoxical Janus-faced process of contradiction and negotiation. I argue that it is Tsushima’s historical metamorphosis that stands out in history, not its subjugation to the power of either state.

16세기 초중반 한중관계의 이념성과 중층성

Under the so-called Ming order in premodern East Asia, which lasted for about 250 years from the turn of the 1400s and the early 1700s, there were big differences between the 1400s and the 1500s in the features of the Sino-Korean relations. In the 1400s, sadae (事大), which means serving a bigger country, inferred a sort of utilitarian and contractual relations with the Ming, implying that the suzerain state could be replaced anytime depending on the political situation. In the early 1600s, however, this trend began to change to unconditional relations based on Confucian moral values in which the Koreans viewed the Ming as a ritual father as well as the suzerain. The reasons for this change can be approached from several perspectives, including Chungjong

A Study of Literary Adaptations of Empress Wu’s Sexual Relationships with Male Attendants: East Asian Comparative Perspective

In pre-modern East Asia, power was equated exclusively with masculinity On account of this reasoning, it was considered an anomaly when a woman emerged as a ruler. The best known female ruler is Empress Wu (675-705; r. 690-705). Between the Song and Qing dynasties, male literati despised the Empress, highlighting her supposed promiscuous life in their writing. Through readings of selected adaptations of her life focusing on sexual bias, this study examines how the some literati demonized her. In these works, I have analyzed their desire for revenge, their fear of the empress, and the phallogocentrism of their works. I have also broadened my perspective to explore the cases of Queen Seondeok (r. 632-647) and Empress Suiko (554－628; r. 592-628) in order to find similarities and dissimilarities in the literary treatments of female rulers in East Asia. Queen Seondeok was portrayed positively to some extent, while Empress Suiko was rarely mentioned in terms of gender or sexuality. The different mis/representations of the three female rulers in their own countries are considered to come from the three women`s different class and cultural backgrounds.

전근대 동아시아의 국제질서 - 일본의 연구성과를 중심으로

전근대 동아시아의 국제질서 - 일본의 연구성과를 중심으로