SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Kasa as a means of communication

Abstract

How have ideas, concepts and mentalities been transmitted among different layers of the population and vast distances, particularly before the modern means of communication to which we have grown accustomed came into being? This question will be examined by looking at vernacular songs (kasa) produced in the late Chosŏn period. These songs were often used to bring matters to the attention of the government, like the memorials in Chinese that literati might send to the court, but their audience was not limited to the court, and for certain groups in Chosŏn society they also might function as an expression of protest and a call to action. The final conclusion will be that the well-attested use of kasa for political purposes in the twentieth century was rooted in communicative practices that went back several hundred years. It was the continuation of a tradition (with some modifications which always accompany the handing down of a tradition in order to keep the tradition relevant), rather than an innovation due to the advent of ”modern times.”

Speaker Biography

Boudewijn Walraven studied Japanese and Korean language and culture at Leiden University, where presently he is Professor of Korean Studies. Mainly interested in religious practice and cultural history, he is currently working on the contributions of non-professional historians to historiography, the ways in which Chosŏn vernacular literature formulated and communicated concepts of the community of the nation, and on the nature of Buddhism in the late Chosŏn period. He is an editor of the Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies and the online e-journal Korean Histories (www.koreanhistories.org). The latter is part of the Leiden University “History as Social Process” research project of which he is the director.