Featured Resources
The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature by
This extraordinary one-volume guide to the modern literatures of China, Japan, and Korea is the definitive reference work on the subject in the English language. With more than one hundred articles that show how a host of authors and literary movements have contributed to the general literary development of their respective countries, this companion is an essential starting point for the study of East Asian literatures.
Location: Available at Mugar Reference X PL493 .C55 2003 and OnlinePublication Date: 2003
Voices of East Asia: essential readings from antiquity to the present by
Voices of East Asiaprovides significant yet accessible readings in translation chosen to stimulate interest in the long and rich cultural history of East Asia, the countries of China, Japan, and Korea. The readings range from ancient to modern, elite to popular, and include poetry, stories, essays, and drama. Each section begins with a broad but brief overview of that country's political and cultural history. Each reading is preceded by a concise explanation of its literary and cultural context. As expertise in East Asian studies has exploded in the West in recent decades, a novice could be overwhelmed by all the materials available now. In this volume, however, the reader will find a manageable set of texts that may be read on their own, as part of a world literature course, or as supplementary readings for an East Asian history class. As economic and political news from East Asia sweeps across the world, this anthology aims to provide a taste of the enduring traditions upon which contemporary East Asia is built, a glimpse into the hopes and fears, love and sorrow in the hearts of the people behind the headlines. This anthology will be welcomed by students and scholars of Asian history, culture, society and literature.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2015
Guides to Korean Literature
- Encyclopaedia of Korea From the Australian National University - Open Research Library
Browse books and ebooks on:
Korean Literature - Anthologies
Anthology of Korean Literature: from early times to the nineteenth century by
This books offers a comprehensive sampling of the major genres of poetry and prose written from about A.D. 600 to the end of the nineteenth century. The book contains a dazzling array of myths and legends, essays and biographies, love poems and Zen poems, satirical tales and tales of wonder, stories of adventure and of heroism, as well as quieter works treating the farmer's works and days and the pleasures and sorrows of the simple life.
Location: Mugar Stacks PL984.E1 A5 and OnlinePublication Date: 1981
Modern Korean Literature by
The history of Korea in the twentieth century has been a grim succession of oppressions, humiliations, and betrayals. Yet through it all, modern Korean writers have been able not only to find their own distinctive voices but to forge a national literature that speaks eloquently of the survival of the human spirit in times of crisis. This anthology includes the finest translations available of representative works in all the major genres, including poetry, fiction, essays, and drama. Readers will gain a clear sense of the development of twentieth-century Korean literature and a vivid impression of the resilience, strength, and tenacity of modern Korean writers.
Location: Mugar Stacks PL984.E1 M64 1990Publication Date: 1990-11-01
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry by
Korea's modern poetry is filled with many different voices and styles, subjects and views, moves and countermoves, yet it still remains relatively unknown outside of Korea itself. This is in part because the Korean language, a rich medium for poetry, has been ranked among the most difficult for English speakers to learn. The Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry is the only up-to-date representative gathering of Korean poetry from the twentieth century in English, far more generous in its selection and material than previous anthologies. It presents 228 poems by 34 modern Korean poets, including renowned poets such as So Chongju and Kim Chiha.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2004
Into the Light: An Anthology of Literature by Koreans in Japan by
Into the Light is the first anthology to introduce the fiction of Japan's Korean community (Zainichi Koreans) to the English-speaking world. The collection brings together works by many of the most important Zainichi Korean writers of the twentieth century, from the colonial-era "Into the Light" (1939) by Kim Sa-ryang to "Full House" (1997) by Yu Miri, one of contemporary Japan's most acclaimed and popular authors.
Although diverse in style and subject matter, all of the stories gathered in this volume ask a single consuming question: What does it mean to be Korean in Japan? Some stories record their contemporary milieu, while others focus on internal turmoil or document social and legal discrimination. More generally, they consider the relationship of Korean ethnicity to sexuality, family, culture, politics, and history. Thus the stories provide a fascinating window into the human experience of modernity in Japan and Korea, not only enabling us to track the ways in which grand concepts such as nation, language, empire, economy, and gender have shaped the human imagination, but also entreating us to ask how individual authors have sought to provide insight-or even guidance-on the path that grand history might follow. The volume includes stories by Chong Ch'u-wol, Kim Ch'ang-saeng, Kim Hak-yong, Kim Sa-ryang, Kim Tal-su, Noguchi Kakuchu, Yi Yang-ji, and Yu Miri.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2010
Finding Articles
- BU Libraries Search This link opens in a new window
BU Libraries Search provides a single place to search for a wide variety of research material provided by the library. Resources covered by the search includes books and eBooks, journals, scores and sheet music, video and audio recordings, and other physical and electronic items held by the library. Coverage encompasses materials relating to the prehistoric and antique world through to the present.
- Korean Database This link opens in a new window Full-text collection of Korean classical books including: history, literature, folk literature, natural history, oriental medicine, religion, myth, and other classical works.
- KISS: Han'guk ŭi haeksim chisik chŏngbo chawŏn This link opens in a new window KISS is a full-text database of Korean journals and proceedings. Kiss provides over 1.3 million articles from about 3,285 scholarly journals on social science, humanities, medicine pharmacy, engineering, natural science, physical education and art, linguistics, agricultural science, oceanography. KISS also provides government documents and reports.
- DBpia This link opens in a new window DBpia is a database of articles from Korean scholarly journals in fields including sociology, literature, economics & business, medical science, humanities, theology, law and administration, arts, engineering, natural science, and education. Back issues of each journal title are searchable by article title, author, keyword, journal title and publisher.
- Literature Online This link opens in a new window
LION includes texts, criticism, and reference material, including thousands of literary articles, essays, biographies and encyclopedia entries on over 350,000 works of poetry, prose, and drama from the 8th to the 21st century.
- Literature Criticism Online This link opens in a new window
Contains critical and biographical essays on authors currently living or who died after Jan. 1, 2000. May be searched simultaneously with Contemporary Authors and the Dictionary of Literary Biography.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
This database provides full text access to the back issues of core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Book reviews are included as well as journal articles. Abstracts are available for some of the articles.
- Project Muse This link opens in a new windowProject Muse provides digital access to scholarly journals and books in the humanities and social sciences. The scholarly content comes from non-profit scholarly publishers, including university presses and societies. The full text resources include journal articles, book reviews and book chapters.
- Linguistics Collection This link opens in a new window The Linguistics Collection is comprised of index and full-text databases covering all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The collection includes the Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA), which abstracts and indexes the international literature in linguistics and related disciplines in the language sciences. And Linguistics Database, which includes full-text journals and other sources in linguistics including many titles indexed in LLBA.
Texts
- National Digital Library of Korea Digitized texts from the collections of six major libraries in Korea
- The Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies The Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies' collection comprises over 300,000 articles, including 175,000 ancient texts, 50,000 historical documents, and 18,000 book-printing blocks.
- Digital Library of Korean Literature The Digital Library of Korean Literature is a multilingual archive of Korean literature, including e-books and information on translated Korean works and writers.
- The Veritable Records of The Joseon Dynasty 조선왕조실록 The Joseon wangjo sillok (朝鮮王朝實錄 Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty) includes 28 different sets of chronological records, and each set covers one ruler's reign. It was compiled immediately after the death of the ruler in question. As such, the Veritable Records are not the typical history planned and written by a specific individual or team of individuals. The collection covers the reigns of 25 rulers, from King Taejo to King Cheoljong, and spans a period of 472 years.
- The Daily Records of the Royal Secretariat of Joseon Dynasty 승정원일기 The Seungjeongwon,was composed of six royal secretaries, or Seungji and two scribes, or juseo. Subject to the varying winds of reform of government and administrative systems, the name of the royal secretariat was changed several times from 1894, from Seungjeongwon to Seungseonwon(承宣院),Gungnaebu(宮內府), Biseogam(秘書監), and Biseowon(秘書院). Still, as most of them were compiled under the Seungjeongwon, the entire collection of royal diaries is called Seungjeongwon Ilgi today .
Literary Biography
- Contemporary Authors This link opens in a new windowA bio-bibliographical guide to current writers in fiction, general nonfiction, poetry, journalism, drama, motion pictures, television, and other fields.
Browse books and ebooks on:
Writers of the Winter Republic by
In 1975, a young high school teacher took the stage at a prayer meeting in a southwestern Korean city to recite a poem called "The Winter Republic." The poem became an anthem against the military dictatorship of Park Chung Hee and his successors; the poet, however, soon found himself in court and then in prison for saddling the authoritarian state with such a memorable moniker. This unique book weaves together literary works, biographical accounts, institutional histories, trial transcripts, and personal interviews to tell the powerful story of how literature became a fierce battleground against authoritarian rule during one of the darkest periods in South Korea's history. Park Chung Hee's military dictatorship was a time of unparalleled political oppression. It was also a time of rapid and unprecedented economic development. Against this backdrop, Youngju Ryu charts the growing activism of Korean writers who interpreted literature's traditional autonomy as a clarion call to action, an imperative to intervene politically in the name of art. Each of the book's four chapters is devoted to a single writer and organized around a trope central to his work. Kim Chi-ha's "bandits," satirizing Park's dictatorship: Yi Mun-gu's "neighbor," evoking old nostalgia and new anxieties; Cho Se-hu'i's dwarf, representing the plight of the urban poor; and Hwang Sok-yong's labor fiction, the supposed herald of the proletarian revolution. Ending nearly two decades of an implicit ban on socially engaged writing, literature of the period became politicized not merely in content and form, but also as an institution. Writers of the Winter Republic emerged as the conscience of their troubled yet formative times. A question of politics lies at the heart of this book, which seeks to understand how and why a time of political oppression and censorship simultaneously expanded the practice and everyday relevance of literature. By animating the lives and works of the men who shaped this period, the book offers readers an illuminating literary, cultural, and political history of the era.
Location: Mugar Stacks PL958.7 .R98 2016Publication Date: 2015
Lamentation as History by
This book examines narratives by and about the Koreans in Japan from the mid-1960s through 2000. In so doing, it traces the emergence and evolution of a discourse of this group as a minority community within Japan. Koreans are the only significant postcolonial population to have been subjects of a non-Western empire, yet this is the first full-length study in English of their literature. While scholars have tended to treat literary and political developments as separate historical processes, this book proposes that the two are inextricably interwoven, and that only by examining them together will we be able adequately to understand identity, a concept so fraught and yet so essential to modern individuals--whether members of a minority or not. Because of this approach, the author is able to consider issues such as the importance of life stories for political purposes and the place of gender, both metaphorically and in reality, for ethnic self-definition. The book thus engages in discussions already under way among those interested in minority and postcolonial identity elsewhere in the world.
Location: Mugar Stacks PL725.2.K67 W46 2005Publication Date: 2005
Questioning Minds: short stories by modern Korean women writers by
Available for the first time in English, the ten short stories by modern Korean women collected here touch in one way or another on issues related to gender and kinship politics. All of the protagonists are women who face personal crises or defining moments in their lives as gender-marked beings in a Confucian, patriarchal Korean society. Their personal dreams and values have been compromised by gender expectations or their own illusions about female existence. They are compelled to ask themselves "Who am I?" "Where am I going?" "What are my choices?" Each story bears colorful and compelling testimony to the life of the heroine. Some of the stories celebrate the central character's breakaway from the patriarchal order; others expose sexual inequality and highlight the struggle for personal autonomy and dignity. Still others reveal the abrupt awakening to mid-life crises and the seasoned wisdom that comes with accepting the limits of old age. The stories are arranged in chronological order, from the earliest work by Korea's first modern woman writer in 1917 to stories that appeared in 1995-approximately one from each decade. Most of the writers presented are recognized literary figures, but some are lesser-known voices. The introduction presents a historical overview of traditions of modern Korean women's fiction, situating the selected writers and their stories in the larger context of Korean literature. Each story is accompanied by a biographical note on the author and a brief critical analysis. A selected bibliography is provided for further reading and research. Questioning Minds marks a departure from existing translations of Korean literature in terms of its objectives, content, and format. As such it will contribute to the growth of Korean studies, increasing the availability of material for teaching Korean literature in English, and stimulate readership of its writers beyond the confines of the peninsula.
Location: Mugar Stacks PL984.E8 Q47 2010 and OnlinePublication Date: 2010
Creative Women of Korea: The Fifteenth Through the Twentieth Centuries by
This book introduces important contributions in the humanities by a select group of traditional and modern Korean women, from the 15th through the 20th centuries. The literary and artistic works of these women are considered Korean classics, and the featured artists and writers range from a queen, to a courtesan, to a Buddhist nun, to unknown women of Korea. Although women's works were generally meant only to circulate among women, these creative expressions have caught the attention of literary and artistic connoisseurs. By bringing them to light, the book seeks to demonstrate how Korean women have tried to give their lives meaning over the ages through their very diverse, yet common artistic responses to the details and drama of everyday life in Confucian Korea. The stories of these women and their work give us glimpses of their personal views on culture, aesthetics, history, society, politics, morality, and more.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2015
Bibliographies
- Bibliography of Asian Studies This link opens in a new window
An index to works, primarily in the humanities and the social sciences, pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia. Covers articles, chapters in edited volumes, conference proceedings, anthologies, Festschriften, and books.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Indexes critical materials on literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore. Includes citations from worldwide publications: periodicals, books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations and bibliographies.
- Korean History: A Bibliography Bibliography of English-language resources hosted by the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Hawaii
Korea by Location: Mugar Stacks G58 .W67 v. 204Publication Date: 1997A selective, annotated bibliography, this text aims to provede a detailed survey of the growing body of writing on the Korean peninsula. This reference book concentrates principally on works in English published since the end of the Korean War, but the various aspects of pre-1948 writings are covered, as well as those of North and South Korean.
