[KS] 풍토/향토 translation question to literary and philosophy scholars

[ToruTAMURA]

Hello,

At first, I am sorry that I am not good at English.

風土 and  郷土  do not have same meaning in Japanese.
So, I recommend you to check detail on Japanese dictionary.

Toru TAMURA
in TOKYO

2017-05-24 12:09 GMT+09:00 Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann at koreanstudies.com>:
> The FOLLOWING was written as a reply to a message I got -- I *thought*
> -- here on the list. Only realized that it was sent as a private
> message when trying to send it out. Since I already composed it, let me
> send it anyway to the list. Maybe it evokes some more responses. (And
> I'd suggest Mark sends HIS interesting message that I am replying here
> also to the list.) Thanks.
> -------
>
>
> Dear Mark:
>
> Thank you for sharing your insights and thoughts.
>
> Let me add these thoughts from my end:
>
> 1. These terms, as most terms with origins in Chinese script, often
> have long etymological and ideological tails, and the history of the
> terms themselves often becomes part of their ideological use and abuse.
> What I wonder about is the use of these two terms in the colonial
> period, in other areas than art history (or texts referring to art) --
> particularly in texts related to literature and philosophy. (But your
> notes are already interesting -- so, thanks!)
>
> 2. Why is all this interesting? Well, here is what I found: the areas,
> the fields of study ...
>   (a) folklore studies / ethnology / ethnography / Völkerkunde
>   (b) art history
>   (c) philosophy
> ... were in the 19th and earlier 20th centuries not really as
> "divided", as clearly separated as they are today. Today we think in
> terms of established university subjects and fields, each with its own
> set of tools and methodologies. So, as a trained art historian -- and I
> did have quite a number of private discussions on that with a friend in
> the past -- I can hardly "work" with terms such as "aesthetics." That
> term just breathes the air of some room that was locked a century ago,
> and the key thrown into the next well. It seems obscure and outdated to
> me to talk about "aesthetics" and "art" at the same time, I do not have
> the tools to work on an art work and then say something meaningful
> about it in terms of aesthetics. It seems completely unprofessional and
> out of place. Yet, that was different in the past. Guys like Heidegger
> or Watsuji would discuss works of art (and sometimes what we today
> consider to be folklore) as if they were specialists in interpreting
> them, as they talked about "aesthetics and art" -- WHEREBY aesthetics
> again is a part of philosophy. So, there today so nicely separated
> subjects were in the mind of scholars more like a united field (you may
> have a more elegant way to phrase this). I read those texts today, and
> I find all are more or less utterly useless in understanding works of
> art, UNLESS one is interested in the history of reception of certain
> art works within a certain timeframe (which is certainly an important
> part of art history as a field). But you won't look at art today and
> then study your Heidegger or Watsuji to come up with a meaningful
> understanding.
> Now, what is interesting in the context I am working on now is that in
> the German speaking countries, where art history was as a university
> field was established for many decades by 1900, that "cut" between
> these fields was pretty much completed during the 1890s. When the field
> (as an academic field and university subject) was then adapted to Japan
> and later Korea, though, this separation does NOT show in any way. It
> still was mostly philosophers teaching "aesthetics" and not "art
> history." Both Japanese and Korean art was dealt within the
> "Aesthetics" or Philosophy department, and the methodologies applied
> was that of philosophy (basically no methodology, in other words). That
> is then also, as I see it, one of the reasons why "Archaeology" as a
> field was early on blooming and successful, before and after
> liberation, while art historians were in fact "aestheticians" (is that
> a word?) who just had not learned the crafts of art history, and so
> they would come up with their own "methods" in analyzing Korean art.
> That resulted in what I would call a close-to-complete failure in terms
> of explaining style and stylistic and historical developments! On top
> of that, especially after liberation, there was a huge pressure of
> Koreanizing Korean art, of finding the "characteristics of Korean art"
> (plenty of articles on that!) -- all this still with the handicap, at
> least partially, of not having an actual art historical toolset at hand
> (other than was the case with their colleagues in archaeology).
>
> This is the larger frame I am looking at. (Since this is just email,
> kindly forgive my somewhat rough attempt to summarize my thoughts.) And
> in this context I am interested to learn a little more about such key
> terms, and if these played any roles other than the art context, and if
> so, which.
>
> See -- this is also really fascinating if you try to match such
> findings (of the developments of academic fields in Korea and Japan)
> with the whole history of westernization and modernization. In the case
> of art history, it shows that what was imported was by no means the
> latest in research, but an at the time already outdated concept hardly
> followed (at least so in the German-speaking countries it was adapted
> from). Yes, someone like Heidegger would write about art & aesthetics,
> but in the field of art history he did not exist, he had no really a
> voice there. In the Japanese adaptation this seems completely
> different. Even in translated texts -- I am among others looking at
> Curt Glaser, and Watsuji translated one of his short key texts on the
> research of East Asian art, and even there the most extraordinary,
> forward-looking, concepts, not being reproduced in Euramerica until the
> postmodern times, the 1980s and 90s, were by Watsuji himself then
> embedded into a philosophical context that defied the main message and
> methodological outview of the translated text.
>
> Your input and discussion is much welcome!
>
> Best,
> Frank
>
>
> --------------------------------------
> Frank Hoffmann
> http://koreanstudies.com
>