[KS] CHS Talk on Korean Religions (Sep 20, Sep 26)

[Sean Han]

Dear all,

The Chosŏn History Society will be hosting two events this month on Korean religions. 

1. Victoria Ten (Independent Scholar)
"Ki Suryŏn as a Contemporary Phenomenon: New Age in South Korea?” 

September 20, 6:30 pm (London Time) / 10:30 pm (Los Angeles Time)
Link for registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcscOGsqD4iE9UjvOtBvljBERE4DoUCGECW

Should we consider ki suryŏn (氣修練 training related to ki-life energy) in South Korea as a New Age phenomenon? What is New Age in Korean context? Focusing on GiCheon (氣天), one of the first ki suryŏn groups established in South Korea in the early 1970s, we will look at ki suryŏn as a contemporary urban practice, which, like Chinese qigong and Indian yoga, is reinvented in modernity based upon ancient Asian traditions, thousands years old. Since the early days of research on New Age, an element of personal transformation which leads to the transformation of the society and humanity in general has been emphasized as central to New Age. This transformation was often linked to healing the self, society and environment. Ki suryŏn can be defined as culture of self-cultivation (a world-wide phenomenon), or as a Korean variant of East Asian ki practices. We will talk about the complex relationship between the culture of self-cultivation as a concept, New Age culture as originating in Europe, and old and new East Asian ki practices. French philosopher Michel Foucault proposed helpful tools for conceptualizing self-cultivation as technologies of self, based on epimeleia heautou ‘care of the self’, the theme appearing clearly in Greek philosophy, both Hellenistic and Roman, in the 5th century BCE and continuing until the 4-5th century AD. Foucault determines a 17th century ‘Cartesian moment’ within narratives of Western subjectivity, when the ideas of self-cultivation were relegated to the periphery of Western intellect, where they survived in the occult realm. The period of the 1960s -1980s was when Michel Foucault was most active as a scholar. In the world surrounding Foucault, waves of what later was termed ‘New Age’ swept the globe. As a means to challenge conventional Euro-American conceptions of medicine, health and illness, many European New Age movements have drawn upon East Asian ideas of self-cultivation for inspiration, and some of them embraced Western occultism.


2. John Grisafi (Yale University)
"Constructing Religion in Korea under Japanese and American Rule”

September 26, 5:00 pm (Los Angeles Time), September 27, 9:00 am (Korea Time).
Link for registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAqd-mrpz0pGNSL1hh-quEldql_A1nhS0ax

What is religion? To what does this word refer, and what is omitted from its definition? Who decides what goes into the category of religion and how, and what impacts do such decision have on how we understand religion? Is it possible to be neutral toward religion and simply let it be determined naturally? In the case of Korea, where the modern word for religion, chonggyo (宗敎), was coined in the 1880s, and which was under foreign rule for nearly four decades in the early twentieth century, outside empires had a profound influence on shaping religion as a concept and category. Based on my ongoing dissertation project, this talk discusses the policies and regulations on religion of the 1910–1945 Japanese Government-General in Korea and 1945–1948 United States Army Military Government in Korea. The emphasis is on the shaping effect that governance has on the notions and perceptions of religion, and on the reality experienced by religious persons and institutions. Both foreign empires played roles in the discursive construction of religion, religions, and religious in modern Korea. Each regime made decisions to prescribe norms regarding religion and establish boundaries around, between, and within religions. This study is an effort demonstrate first, how these foreign empires played an impactful role in shaping religion in modern Korea in accordance with their own objectives and views and, second, how such institution cannot take positions on religion without shaping religion, that neutrality toward religion is a logical impossibility.


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