[KS] The 95th Yonsei-KF Korean Studies Forum

Yonsei-KF Korean Studies Forum kimhall at yonsei.ac.kr
Tue Nov 3 21:16:21 EST 2009


The Korean Studies Program and the Korea Foundation would like to
invite you to attend the 95th Yonsei-KF Korean Studies Forum.

Title: Crossing the Boundary of Inner Quarters: Women's Visibility in
the Legal Space of Choson Korea
Speaker: Dr. Jisoo Kim, Visiting Scholar at the International Center
for Korean Studies, SNU
Date: Tuesday, November 10
Time: 6 p.m.
Location: Room 702, New Millennium Hall, Yonsei University
No RSVP required. For directions, please refer to
http://gsis.yonsei.ac.kr/html/content.asp?code=001007.

Questions? Contact kimhall at yonsei.ac.kr or at 010-4800-4895

We hope to see you next week Tuesday.

Sincerely,

Hyuk-Rae Kim
hyukrae at yonsei.ac.kr
Professor of Korean Studies
Graduate School of International Studies
Yonsei University

abstract: This paper is about women’s petitioning activity during the
Chosŏn dynasty (1392 ̶ 1910). Contrary to a common preconception,
women of the Chosŏn were recognized as fully empowered subjects and
conferred with the right to petition the state to publicize their
grievances outside their inner quarters. By examining women’s
petitions submitted during the late Chosŏn dynasty, this paper
explores the significance of especially elite women’s petitioning
activity in legally sanctioned public spaces. Although the
conventional wisdom shows that the adoption of Neo-Confucianism during
the Chosŏn dynasty deprived women’s economic and social privileges by
the mid-seventeenth century, this paper shows how women continued to
petition the state throughout more than 500 years of the Chosŏn
dynasty. Furthermore, it demonstrates how elite women embodied
Confucian gender norms but concurrently challenged it by utilizing the
right to petition.

bio: Dr. Jisoo Kim is a visiting scholar at the International Center
for Korean Studies, Seoul National University. She will join The
George Washington University as Korea Foundation Assistant Professor
of History and International Affairs in 2010-11. She received her M.A.
and Ph.D. in Korean history from Columbia University (2009). Her
dissertation, which is entitled “Voices Heard: Women’s Right to
Petition in Late Chosŏn Korea,” explores women’s utilization of the
right to petition the state to redress grievances. She recently
contributed a chapter “Individual Petitions: Petitions by Women in the
Chosŏn,” in JaHyun Kim Haboush ed., Epistolary Korea: Letters in the
Communicative Space of the Chosŏn, 1392-1910 (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2009).




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