Seeking Order in a Tumultuous Age

Seeking Order in a Tumultuous Age
Author: David M. Robinson
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2016-08-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 0824859472

Chŏng Tojŏn, one of the most influential thinkers in Korean history, played a leading role in the establishment of the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910). Long recognized for his contributions to the development of Neo-Confucianism in Korea, Chŏng was both a prodigious writer and an influential statesman before being murdered in a political coup. Seeking Order in a Tumultuous Age charts Chŏng’s rise to prominence amidst the turmoil of the late fourteenth century, when Korea struggled to come to terms with the political, military, and intellectual changes of an emerging new East Asian international order. In addition to providing a clear and accessible introduction to the broader world of fourteenth-century Korea, the book provides a fascinating window into Chŏng as a person through annotated translations of his poetry, letters, and political writings—most of them previously unavailable in English. Chŏng’s written works reveal a firm belief that Chinese classical traditions and recent intellectual developments on the continent contained vital lessons for Korea. The detailed annotations will allow readers to appreciate the wide variety of classical sources with which Chŏng and his contemporaries were familiar and how these sources were applied to the times. Chŏng had an unwavering faith in educated and engaged men as the preservers, interpreters, and implementers of such wisdom and was adamant that they should be given great power and authority in government. Seeking Order in a Tumultuous Age will be welcomed by students and specialists of East Asian history and thought as well those wishing to learn more about a chaotic yet vibrant period in Korean history.

Seeking Order in a Tumultuous Age

Seeking Order in a Tumultuous Age
Author: To-jŏn Chŏng
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2016
Genre: Korea
ISBN: 9780824872151

Chong Tojon, one of the most influential thinkers in Korean history, played a leading role in the establishment of the Choson dynasty (1392-1910). Long recognised for his contributions to the development of Neo-Confucianism in Korea, Chong was both a prodigious writer and an influential statesman. This volume charts Chong's rise to prominence amidst the turmoil of the late fourteenth century.

The Foresight of Dark Knowing

The Foresight of Dark Knowing
Author: John Jorgensen
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2018-06-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0824875508

Korea has long had an underground insurrectionary literature. The best-known example of the genre is the Chŏng Kam nok, a collection of premodern texts predicting the overthrow of the Yi Dynasty (1392–1910) that in recent times has been invoked by a wide range of groups to support various causes and agendas: from leaders of Korea’s new religious movements formed during and after the Japanese occupation to spin doctors in the South Korean elections of the 1990s to proponents of an aborted attempt to move the capital from Seoul in the early 2000s. Written to inspire uprisings and foment dissatisfaction, the Chŏng Kam nok texts are anonymous and undated. (Most were probably written between the seventeenth and late nineteenth centuries.) In his expansive introduction to this first English translation, John Jorgensen notes that the work employs forms or codes of political prediction (Ch. tuch’en; Kor. toch’am) allied with Chinese geomancy (fengshui) but in a combination unique to Korea. The two types of codes appear to deal with different subjects—the potency of geographical locations and political predictions derived from numerological cycles, omens, and symbols—but both emerge from a similar intellectual sphere of prognostication arts that includes divination, the Yijing (Book of Changes), physiognomy, and astrology in early China, and both share theoretical components, such as the fluctuation of ki (Ch. qi). In addition to ambiguous and obscure passages, allusion and indirection abound; many predictions are attributed to famous people in the distant past or made after the fact to lend the final outcome an air of authority. Jorgensen’s invaluable introduction contains a wealth of background on the history and techniques of political prediction, augury, and geomancy from the first-century Han dynasty in China to the end of the nineteenth century in Korea, providing readers with a thorough account of East Asian geomancy based on original sources. This volume will be welcomed by students and scholars of premodern Korean history and beliefs and those with an interest in early, arcane sources of political disinformation that remain relevant in South Korea to this day.

Numinous Awareness Is Never Dark

Numinous Awareness Is Never Dark
Author:
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2016-10-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0824867424

Numinous Awareness Is Never Dark examines the issue of whether enlightenment in Zen Buddhism is sudden or gradual—that is, something intrinsic to the mind that is achieved in a sudden flash of insight or something extrinsic to it that must be developed through a sequential series of practices. This “sudden/gradual issue” was one of the crucial debates that helped forge the Zen school in East Asia, and the Korean Zen master Chinul’s (1158–1210) magnum opus, Excerpts, offers one of the most thorough treatments of it in all of premodern Buddhist literature. According to Chinul’s analysis, enlightenment is both sudden and gradual. Zen practice must begin with a sudden awakening to the “numinous awareness”—the “sentience,” or buddha-nature—that is inherent in all “sentient” beings. Such an awareness does not need to be developed but must simply be recognized (or better “re-cognized”), through the unmediated experience of insight. Even after this initial awakening, however, deeply engrained proclivities of thought and conduct may continue to disturb the practitioner; these can only be removed gradually as his or her practice matures. Chinul’s “sudden awakening/gradual cultivation” soteriology became emblematic of the Buddhist tradition in Korea. Excerpts, translated here in its entirety by the preeminent Western specialist in the Korean Buddhist tradition, goes on to examine Chinul’s treatments of many of the quintessential practices of Zen Buddhism, including nonconceptualization, or no-thought, and the concurrent development of meditation and wisdom, as well as, for the first time in Korean Zen, “examining meditative topics” (kanhwa Sŏn)—what we in the West know better as kōans, after its later Japanese analogues. Fitting this new technique into his preferred soteriological schema of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation was no simple task for Chinul. Numinous Awareness Is Never Dark offers an extensive study of the contours of the sudden/gradual debate in Buddhist thought and practice and traces the influence of Chinul’s analysis of this issue throughout the history of the Korean tradition. Copiously annotated, the work contains extensive selections from the two traditional Korean commentaries to the text. In Buswell’s treatment, Chinul’s Excerpts emerges as the single most influential work written by a Korean Buddhist author.

Play Among Books

Play Among Books
Author: Miro Roman
Publisher: Birkhäuser
Total Pages: 528
Release: 2021-12-06
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 3035624054

How does coding change the way we think about architecture? This question opens up an important research perspective. In this book, Miro Roman and his AI Alice_ch3n81 develop a playful scenario in which they propose coding as the new literacy of information. They convey knowledge in the form of a project model that links the fields of architecture and information through two interwoven narrative strands in an “infinite flow” of real books. Focusing on the intersection of information technology and architectural formulation, the authors create an evolving intellectual reflection on digital architecture and computer science.

A Korean Confucian’s Advice on How to Be Moral

A Korean Confucian’s Advice on How to Be Moral
Author: Don Baker
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 485
Release: 2023-04-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0824894340

Tasan Chŏng Yagyong (1762–1836) is one of the most creative thinkers Korea has ever produced, one of the country’s first Christians, and a leading scholar in Confucian philosophy. Born in a staunchly Neo-Confucian society, in his early twenties he encountered writings by Catholic missionaries in China and was fascinated. However, when he later learned that the Catholic Church condemned the Confucian practice of placing a spirit tablet on a family altar to honor past generations, he left the small Catholic community he had helped found and ostensibly returned to the Neo-Confucian fold. Nevertheless, the Christian ideas he studied in his youth influenced his thinking for the rest of his life, stimulating him to look at Neo-Confucianism with a critical eye and suggest new solutions to problems Confucian scholars had been addressing for centuries. A Korean Confucian’s Advice on How to Be Moral is an annotated translation of Tasan’s commentaries on the Confucian classic Zhongyong (usually translated as The Doctrine of the Mean) in which he applies both Confucianism and Christianity to the question of how to best develop a moral character. Written as a dialogue with King Chŏngjo (r. 1776–1800), these texts reveal how Tasan interpreted his Confucian tradition, particularly its understanding of how human beings could cultivate morality, while the king’s questions illustrate the mainstream Neo-Confucianism Tasan was reacting against. Tasan challenged the non-theistic standard, insisting that living a moral life is not easy and that we need to be motivated to exert the effort necessary to overcome our selfish tendencies. He had abandoned his faith by the time he wrote these commentaries but, influenced by Catholic works and determined to find a more effective way to live a moral life than non-theistic Neo-Confucianism provided, Tasan constructed a Confucian philosophy of moral improvement centered on belief in God. This translation, helpfully annotated for context and analysis, is an exploration of early Korean engagement with the West and a powerful guide to all those interested in Confucianism, Christianity, and morality.

Poems and Stories for Overcoming Idleness

Poems and Stories for Overcoming Idleness
Author:
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 473
Release: 2024-05-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 0824897323

Poems and Stories for Overcoming Idleness is the first complete translation in any Western language of P’ahan chip, the earliest Korean work of sihwa (C. shihua; “remarks on poetry”) and one of the oldest extant Korean sources. The collection was written and compiled by Yi Illo (1152–1220) during the mid-Koryǒ dynasty (918–1392). P’ahan chip features poetry composed in Literary Chinese (the scriptura franca of the premodern East Asian “Sinographic Sphere”) by the author and his friends, which included such literary greats as Im Ch’un (dates unknown) and O Sejae (1133–?). P’ahan chip also contains the work of other writers of diverse backgrounds: Chinese master poets, famous Confucian literati, eminent Buddhist masters, erudite Daoist hermits, Koryŏ kings—as well as long-forgotten lower-level officials, unemployed intellectuals, and rural scholars. The verse compositions are embedded in short narratives by Yi that provide context for the poems. In accordance with the guidelines of the sihwa-genre, these narratives focus primarily on matters relating to poetry while touching on a wide array of subjects such as Korean history and customs; the court and government institutions; official procedures and festivals; Koryǒ foreign-policy and diplomacy; books and the circulation of knowledge; calligraphy and painting; Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist thought; the role of women; and scenic spots and famous buildings. The book opens with an extensive introduction by translator Dennis Wuerthner on Yi Illo and P’ahan chip set against the backdrop of literary and historical developments in Korea and sino-centric East Asia and vital issues relating to Koryŏ politics, society, and culture. Wuerthner’s comprehensive, thought-provoking study is followed by a copiously annotated translation of this important Korean classic.

Terror and Wonder

Terror and Wonder
Author: Blair Kamin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2011-11
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0226423123

Collects the best of Kamin's writings for the Chicago Tribune from the past decade.

The Master from Mountains and Fields

The Master from Mountains and Fields
Author:
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2022-11-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0824894774

The Master from Mountains and Fields is a fully annotated translation of the prose texts from the “collected works” of Sŏ Kyŏngdŏk (1489–1546), an influential Confucian scholar from the early Chosŏn period (1392-1910). A native of Songdo (also known as Kaesŏng) in present-day North Korea, Sŏ has loomed large in the Korean cultural imagination and appeared as an exceptional sage and popular hero in numerous tales, dramas, and films, yet his writings are little known outside the academic milieu. Also called Master Hwadam, Sŏ embodied an archetype of the secluded scholar who remains hidden in “mountains and forests” to devote himself to his studies. Held in esteem in both South and North Korea today (a notable exception in contemporary studies on Chosŏn Neo-Confucianism), Sŏ and his ideas about Vital Energy influenced the great Korean Neo-Confucian debates of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries surrounding the psychophysiological origins of morality as well as various non-orthodox intellectual trends in the late Chosŏn. His thought is fundamentally rooted in the cosmology based on the exegesis of the Book of Changes and follows the teachings of various early Chinese Neo-Confucian thinkers; it presents a vivid example of the eclectic nature of ideas and intellectual trends coexisting within what is generically called Neo-Confucianism out of convenience. This volume presents the first English translation of all prose writings attributed to Sŏ and most of the peritexts from his posthumously published collection Hwadam chip. It reflects the importance of literary compilations (munjip) in the intellectual history of Chosŏn and the complex process of the making of Confucian masters in Korea. Sŏ’s prose works are concise and diverse and offer a glimpse at an author who thwarts stereotyping; an introduction and annotations provide further context. The lengthy endnotes that accompany each text make this a useful handbook for anybody interested in Chosŏn Korea and Confucianism, from students in East Asian and Korean studies to specialists in literary Chinese (hanmun) or East Asian intellectual history.

The Oxford World History of Empire

The Oxford World History of Empire
Author: Peter Fibiger Bang
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 1449
Release: 2020-12-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0197532772

This is the first world history of empire, reaching from the third millennium BCE to the present. By combining synthetic surveys, thematic comparative essays, and numerous chapters on specific empires, its two volumes provide unparalleled coverage of imperialism throughout history and across continents, from Asia to Europe and from Africa to the Americas. Only a few decades ago empire was believed to be a thing of the past; now it is clear that it has been and remains one of the most enduring forms of political organization and power. We cannot understand the dynamics and resilience of empire without moving decisively beyond the study of individual cases or particular periods, such as the relatively short age of European colonialism. The history of empire, as these volumes amply demonstrate, needs to be drawn on the much broader canvas of global history. Volume Two: The History of Empires tracks the protean history of political domination from the very beginnings of state formation in the Bronze Age up to the present. Case studies deal with the full range of the historical experience of empire, from the realms of the Achaemenids and Asoka to the empires of Mali and Songhay, and from ancient Rome and China to the Mughals, American settler colonialism, and the Soviet Union. Forty-five chapters detailing the history of individual empires are tied together by a set of global synthesizing surveys that structure the world history of empire into eight chronological phases.