From Subservience to Autonomy: Kim Wŏnju's "Awakening"
Kim Wŏnju ( 1896-1971 ), better known by her pen name, Iryŏp (One Leaf), was one of the most outspoken and controversial feminist writers of modern Korea. This study presents a brief biography of Kim up to the time she became a Buddhist nun in the early 1930s, situating her life in the ideological, literary, cultural, and even political settings of her time. It then critically analyzes the structure, narrative strategies, and ideological implications of Kim's short story "Chagak" (Awakening, 1926), attempting to ascertain the story's place in the context of the time and in the author's development as a feminist writer.
In Quest of Modern Womanhood: Sinyŏja, A Feminist Journal in Colonial Korea
This article appraises the impact and significance of Sinyŏja (New Woman; 1920), the first feminist journal published in Korea after the March 1, 1919, movement, in the development of discourses on the “Woman Question” in colonial Korea. Created and managed by women—with the pioneering feminist writer Kim Wŏn-ju (1896–1971) as its editor and centrifugal force—the journal provided a public platform exclusively for women, who publicized feminist ideas, criticism, and visions. The journal’s major goals included: women’s awakening, empowerment, and self-realization through education; stimulation of women’s socio-cultural and historical consciousness; reform of oppressive Confucian patriarchal familial and marital institutions; and, ultimately, gender equality. This study traces the journal’s trajectories, focusing on its prime movers, editorials, articles, and short stories. In the end, this article sheds light on Sinyŏja’s contribution to authenticating modern Korean women’s mass media engagement as well as legitimizing their feminist aspirations for socio-cultural intervention and subversion, which was rarely duplicated in colonial Korean journalistic history.
Nationalism and the Korean Tradition, 1896-1920: Iconoclasm, Reform, and National Identity
Modern Korean nationalism emerged from a process of reform and reexamination of Korean society and history sparked by the confrontation with Western powers in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The evolution of a nationalist ideology involved an iconoclastic reevaluation of accepted political theories and institutions. In particular, the Confucian social system, the Korean folk tradition, and the traditional Korean relationship with China were subjected to extensive criticism and reevaluation. In the writings of nationalist intellectuals between 1896 and the early 1920s can be traced the development of a new Korean nationalism which attempted to blend Western political theories and indigenous Korean political patterns.