Making belief : religion and the state in Korea, 1392-1960
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation investigates the relationship between religion and the state in the formation of a new belief about modern Korea. It examines how religion has shaped the idea of nation, an ostensibly novel way of imagining the collective. I argue that two types of religion have been central to that imagination: the state religion of the Chosŏn and the imported notion of religion as a category for legitimate belief. In the first chapter, I consider the way in which the Chosŏn used religion to present itself as a divinely mandated polity located outside the Ming's sphere of influence. By utilizing official chronicles, astrological literature, ceremonial manuals, and private writings of the elites, I demonstrate that official religion under the Choson dynasty served to instill a sense of collective belonging before the advent of nationalism. In the second chapter, I examine the creation of a new national identity by Koreans who denied that Japan and State Shinto were the only roads into the light of civilization and modern nationhood. In the third chapter I focus on the definition of superstition by the colonial state and how colonial Korean identity became grounded in that definition in the run up to the official campaign to promote State Shinto. In the final chapter I discuss how Korean Buddhism became the vehicle for claiming a new national identity by the nascent Republic of Korea, which inherited both the religious policies of the colonial state and ideas about religion and nation harbored by Koreans thinkers of the past.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2011 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Koo, Se-Woong |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Religious Studies |
| Primary advisor | Bielefeldt, Carl |
| Primary advisor | Faure, Bernard |
| Thesis advisor | Bielefeldt, Carl |
| Thesis advisor | Faure, Bernard |
| Thesis advisor | Moon, Yumi |
| Advisor | Moon, Yumi |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Se-Woong Koo. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Religious Studies. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2011. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2011 by Se-Woong Koo
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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