An international conference hosted by the UCLA Center for Korean Studies

This conference examines cultural exchanges between Chosŏn Korea and East Asia from the 16th to the 19th centuries. It will revisit various moments in which the border-crossing travels of Koreans to Qing China and Tokugawa Japan sparked new forms of human relations, political ideas, and textual practices. Encounters across state borders often meant violent confrontations involving armed forces, and the Imjin War (1592–1598) produced long-lasting memories of traumatic experiences in Chosŏn. In the new international order that emerged after the wars, however, the royal court of Chosŏn maintained formal diplomatic relations with Qing China and Tokugawa Japan. The regular and irregular diplomatic visits of Chosŏn envoys and literati to China and Japan were themselves the sources of extensive travel writings as literary works, and the stimuli for creative cultural productions on both sides of these borders.

This conference brings together scholars from East Asia and North America to explore the impacts of cultural encounters across East Asia in the three centuries following the Imjin War. It also aims to foster critical conversations on methodological issues in the study of the literature and culture of Chosŏn Korea in the context of East Asia with a renewed sense of relevance to the contemporary crisis in the world order.

Opening Remarks

8:45–9:00 AM

• Hyun Suk Park, Stanford University
• Sixiang Wang, UCLA

Keynote Speech I

9:00–10:00 AM

Wartime Survival and Postwar Dynamics of Power in Chosŏn Korea, 1592–1623

• Presenter: Nam-lin Hur, University of British Columbia
• Moderator: Sixiang Wang, UCLA

Panel 1
Collective Memories and Cultural Production in the Aftermath of the Imjin War

10:15–11:45 AM

1. When the Dead Return: Haunting the Imjin War in Late Chosŏn
   • Solmi Chung, Korea University
2. Theorizing Hŏ Nansŏrhŏn 許蘭雪軒 (1563–1589): Gendered Mediascape of Late Ming-Chosŏn Poetics
   • Peng Xu, ShanghaiTech University
3. Uichong(義塚): Shaping the Memory of War
   • Hyok Key Song, Korea University

• Moderator: Yinghui Wu, UCLA

Lunch

11:45–1:00

All participants

Keynote Speech II

1:00–2:00 PM

Repetition and Difference: The First and the Last Pieces of the Joseon Dynasty Travelogue to Beijing (燕行錄) and the History of Illusion records(幻史) (in Korean)

• Presenter: Junchul Lim, Korea University
• Moderator: Hyun Suk Park, Stanford University

Panel 2
The Records of the Journeys to Yanjing: Literary and Linguistic Exchanges between Chosŏn Korea and Qing China (Chosŏn–Qing China)

2:15–3:45 PM

1. Why Didn’t He Change? – Park Jiwon 朴趾源 and Heo-saeng 許生 (in Korean)
   • Kil Soo Chung, Seoul National University
2. Vernacular Vocalization of the Confucian Classics as  Philological Practice: Perspectives from Intercultural Encounters 
   • Si Nae Park, Harvard University
3. Is the Holy Mother the Mother of the Jade Emperor? A Comparative Study of Hanmun Yeonhaengrok and Hangu Yeonhaengrok (in Korean)
   • Lin Yuyi 林侑毅, National Chengchi University, Taiwan

• Moderator: Christopher Hanscom, UCLA

Panel 3
Between Strangers and Enemies: Chosŏn Scholar-Officials in Japan

4:00–5:30 PM

1. Civilization and Military Might – Exchanges between the Sorai School and the Tongshinsa and Their Significance in the History of Thought
   • Hyo Won Lee, Inha University
2. Harnessing Military Exchange for Diplomatic Ends: Reassessing the 1881 Courtiers’ Inspection Mission and Its Impact on Chosŏn Korea’s Military System 
   • Jinsung Kim, University of British Columbia
3. Modelling Korea’s Diplomatic Strategies in the Sinitic World Order: The 1719 Chosŏn-Tokugawa Mission (朝鮮通信使)
   • Wiebke Denecke, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Moderator: Satoko Shimazaki, UCLA

Dinner (Invited Participants Only)

6:00–8:00

Panel 4
Textual Exchanges and Knowledge Production across State Borders in East Asia

9:00–10:45 AM

1. Research on Korean Hanja Studies: Focusing on Intercultural Encounters with Chinese Philological Works in the Late Joseon Period
   • Wonseok Yang, Korea University
2. Longitude-latitude and climatic knowledge in Chosŏn-Qing cultural exchange (Zoom)
   • Wenjiao Cai, Georgetown University
3. How was Pyongyang-ji (平壤誌) read in modern Japan: The First Sino-Japanese War and Korean Sinographic Text
   • Ho Bin Song, Korea University

• Moderator: Sixiang Wang, UCLA

Roundtable

11:00–12:00 PM

Collaborations in the Future

• Wiebke Denecke, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Hyok Key Song, Korea University