Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea: Between Genealogical Time and the Domestic Everyday

287 Pages·2021·5.344 MB·English

by  Ksenia Chizhova

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KINSHIP NOVELS

of Early Modern
K O R E A
Between Genealogical Time
and the Domestic Everyday
KINSHIP NOVELS OF EARLY MODERN KOREA
Premodern East Asia: New Horizons
A Center for Korean Research Book
PREMODERN EAST ASIA: NEW HORIZONS
This series is dedicated to books that focus on humanistic studies of East Asia before the
mid- nineteenth century in fields including literature and cultural and social history, as
well as studies of science and technology, the environment, visual cultures, performance,
material culture, and gender. The series particularly welcomes works with field-c hanging
and paradigm- shifting potential that adopt interdisciplinary and innovative approaches.
Contributors to the series share the premise that creativity in method and rigor in
research are preconditions for producing new knowledge that transcends modern disci-
plinary confines and the framework of the nation- state. In highlighting the complexity
and dynamism of premodern societies, these books illuminate the relevance of East Asia
to the contemporary world.
Becoming Guanyin: Artistic Devotion of Buddhist Women in Late Imperial China, Yuhang Li
Kinship Novels
of Early Modern Korea
BETWEEN GENEALOGICAL TIME
AND THE DOMESTIC EVERYDAY
Ksenia Chizhova
Columbia University Press
New York
This work was supported by the Core University Program for Korean Studies through
the Ministry of Education of the Republic of the Korea and the Korean Studies Promotion
Service of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2 016- OLU- 2250006).
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup . columbia . edu
Copyright © 2021 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-231-18780-0 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-231-18781-7 (paper)
ISBN 978-0-231-54747-5 (ebook)
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-f ree paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover image: Kim Hongdo (cid:24953)(cid:11968)(cid:24571), Illustrations of Hong I-sang's Life, one of the eight panels
from silk folding screen, courtesy of the National Museum of Korea
Cover design: Chang Jae Lee
For Anton and Daehwan, in honor of the complexities of
kinship and in acknowledgment of my perpetual inability to achieve
a semblance of work– life balance.

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Lineage and the Novel
in Chosŏn Korea, 1392–1 910 1
PART I Figurations of Chosŏn Kinship
I The Structure of Kinship: Generational Narratives 37
II The Texture of Kinship: Vernacular Korean Calligraphy 68
PART II The Affective Coordinates of Kinship
III Feelings and the Space of the Novel 95
IV Feelings and the Conflicts of Kinship 124
PART III Reconfiguration
V The Novel Without the Lineage 161
Notes 193
References 241
Index 261
[ vii ]

Acknowledgments
N
ow finished, this book appears to have so little that belongs to
me only. Rather than a monograph, it is a web of connections
and relationships, chance encounters— with written sources and
people— that coalesced into a bound volume with physical proportions.
These notes of gratitude chart the moments of reciprocity so fundamental
to academic writing and all the more poignant at the time of the COVID-
19 outbreak, social distancing, and canceled events.
I am deeply grateful for my time at Columbia University’s East Asian
Languages and Cultures Department, which changed me as a person and
as a thinker. I still revisit the conversations I had with the late professor
JaHyun Kim Haboush, surprised by how little I understood back then and
how much her words can still teach me in the time to come. Dorothy Ko
has been a truly enchanting mentor, showing how scholarship can be fun
and elegant and deeply personal. Theodore Hughes was always there in
times of trouble, and his unfailingly astute advice made all the difference.
Jungwon Kim’s friendliness and care made everything better. Particia Dai-
ley was a guide to a sophisticated world of ideas, which I can only ever
hope to be part of. Eugenia Lean’s incisive feedback taught me a great deal.
I am also very grateful for the company of Dajeong Chung, Shing-t ing
Lin, Sixiang Wang, Jenny Wang Medina, Mi- Ryong Shim, Jae Won
Chung, and Jon Kief, who made Kent Hall feel like home.
[ ix ]