Chang, H.K.H. (2020) A fugitive christian public: singing, sentiment, and socialization in colonial Korea. Journal of Korean Studies, 25 (2). pp. 291-323. ISSN 0731-1613
Abstract
Well-known songs of colonial Korea such as “Kagop’a” and “Pongsŏnhwa” appear to be secular songs, but their origins lie in the complex intersection of North American Christian missions, Korean cultural life, and Japanese colonial rule. This article explores the historical significance of secular sentimental songs in colonial Korea (1910–45), which originated in mission schools and churches. At these sites North American missionaries and Christian Koreans converged around songwriting, song publishing, and vocal performance. Missionary music editors such as Annie Baird, Louise Becker, and their Korean associates relied on secular sentimental songs to cultivate a new kind of psychological interior associated with a modern subjectivity. An examination of representative vernacular song collections alongside accounts of social connections formed through musical activities gives a glimpse into an intimate space of a new religion in which social relations and subjective interiors were both mediated and represented by songs. The author argues that this space was partly formed by Christianity’s fugitive status in the 1910s under the uncertainty of an emergent colonial rule and traces the genealogy of Korean vernacular modernity to the activities of singing in this space, which she calls a fugitive Christian public.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York. This is an author-produced version of a paper subsequently published in Journal of Korean Studies. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Christianity; colonial period; modernity; missionaries; music |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of East Asian Studies (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 23 Nov 2020 17:46 |
Last Modified: | 24 Nov 2020 12:45 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Duke University Press |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1215/07311613-8551992 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:168292 |