Sitings: Critical Approaches to Korean Geography

Arranged around a set of provocative themes, the essays in this volume engage in the discussion from various critical perspectives on Korean geography. Part One, “Geographies of the (Colonial) City,” focuses on Seoul during the Japanese colonial occupation from 1910–1945 and the lasting impact of that period on the construction of specific places in Seoul. In Part Two, “Geographies of the (Imagined) Village,” the authors delve into the implications for the conceptions of the village of recent economic and industrial development. In this context, they examine both constructed space, such as the Korean Folk Village, and rural villages that were physically transformed through the processes of rapid modernization. The essays in “Geographies of Religion” (Part Three) reveal how religious sites are historically and environmentally contested as well as the high degree of mobility exhibited by sites themselves. Similarly, places that exist at the margins are powerful loci for the negotiation of identity and aspects of cultural ideology. The final section, “Geographies of the Margin,” focuses on places that exist at the margins of Korean society.

Contributors: Todd A. Henry, Jong-Heon Jin, Laurel Kendall, David J. Nemeth, Robert Oppenheim, Michael J. Pettid, Je-Hun Ryu, Jesook Song,Timothy R. Tangherlini, Sallie Yea.

• Timothy R. Tangherlini, Editor

• Sallie Yea, Editor

• The essays in this book . . . use space to interrogate cultural and social boundaries found in Korea. They are not only empirical but also theoretical. The book thus invites students of Korean studies to enter a new field of investigation: empirically and theoretically informed spatial histories of Korea. In this respect, it calls for cases that deal with issues critically relevant to Korean society today and for a rigorous treatment of space as more than a site of social relations.
  —Hong Kal, York University, Pacific Affairs (83:4, December 2010)