[KS] A Center for Korean Research/Columbia University Press Book Publication Announcement

Jooyeon Kim jk2857 at columbia.edu
Mon Jul 13 12:07:20 EDT 2020


Dear KS moderator,



Could you please circulate the announcement below via the Korean studies
listserv? Thank you!



Best,

Jooyeon



Dear Colleagues,


CKR is pleased to announce the publication of Si Nae Park's book, *The
Korean Vernacular Story: Telling Tales of Contemporary Chosŏn in
Sinographic Writing,* published by Columbia University Press. This is the
third book in the Center for Korean Research book series. For more
information on the series, please visit: http://ckr.weai.columbia.edu/ck
<http://ckr.weai.columbia.edu/ckr-cup-book-series/>r-cup-book-series/
<http://ckr.weai.columbia.edu/ckr-cup-book-series/>



[image: CUP Park.jpg]
The Korean Vernacular Story: Telling Tales of Contemporary Chosŏn in
Sinographic Writing

Si Nae Park
Columbia University Press
Date of Publication: July 2020


As the political, economic, and cultural center of Chosŏn Korea,
eighteenth-century Seoul epitomized a society in flux: It was a bustling,
worldly metropolis into which things and people from all over the country
flowed. In this book, Si Nae Park examines how the culture of Chosŏn Seoul
gave rise to a new vernacular narrative form that was evocative of the
spoken and written Korean language of the time.

The vernacular story (*yadam*) flourished in the nineteenth century as
anonymously and unofficially circulating tales by and for Chosŏn people. *The
Korean Vernacular Story* focuses on the formative role that the
collection *Repeatedly
Recited Stories of the East* (*Tongp’ae naksong*) played in shaping *yadam*,
analyzing the collection’s language and composition and tracing its
reception and circulation. Park situates its compiler, No Myŏnghŭm, in
Seoul’s cultural scene, examining how he developed a sense of belonging in
the course of transforming from a poor provincial scholar to an urbane
literary figure. No wrote his tales to serve as stories of contemporary
Chosŏn society and chose to write not in cosmopolitan Literary Sinitic but
instead in a new medium in which Literary Sinitic is hybridized with the
vernacular realities of Chosŏn society. Park contends that this linguistic
innovation to represent tales of contemporary Chosŏn inspired readers not
only to circulate No’s works but also to emulate and cannibalize his
stylistic experimentation within Chosŏn’s manuscript-heavy culture of texts.

The first book in English on the origins of *yadam*, *The Korean Vernacular
Story *combines historical insight, textual studies, and the history of the
book. By highlighting the role of negotiation with Literary Sinitic and
sinographic writing, it challenges the script (*han’gŭl*)-focused
understanding of Korean language and literature.
ABOUT THE AUTHORSi Nae Park is associate professor of East Asian languages
and civilizations at Harvard University.



The CKR/CUP Book Series is supported by the Core University Program for
Korean Studies through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of the
Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies
(AKS-2016-OLU-2250006).


Best regards,

Jooyeon Kim
Assistant Director
Center for Korean Research <http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ckr/>

Weatherhead East Asian Institute

Columbia University

Tel: 212.854.1728  Fax: 212-749-1497
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