Social Science

This book analyzes the everyday scenery of the early
modern era that is describes in literary
magazines, Sonyŏn and Ch’ŏngch’un, published by Nam-Sŏn’s Ch’oe (1890-1957). He was a prominent modern Korean historian,
pioneering poet, and publisher. These two magazines were evaluated as the
Korea's first successful modern style journals. Ch’oe sought to bring modern
knowledge about the world to Korea's young generation and to promote the usage
of Han’gul, Korean alphabet, as a literary medium through his magazines.

These
magazines, Sonyŏn and Ch’ŏngch’un, are essential resources that let its readers peek
into the everyday life of the 1900s and 1910s. They are also showcase the
everyday life of the early modern time in diverse ways through hybridity,
pre-modern and modern. Their distinctive style – the pioneering and deliberate
hybridity – serve as a good tool in the initial stages of exploring the public,
the daily, and the cultural arenas of the 1900s and 1910s.

The
book attempts to recreate the sensations from the era in Sonyŏn and Ch’ŏngch’un with the themes of civilization, the state, the
heroine, science, and the everyday life. While handling each of the themes the
authors simultaneously tidied and interpreted the visual materials from the two
magazines in an attempt to expand the primary data for research, while further
suggesting a need for research of the everyday life in the 1900s and 1910s. A
distinguishing feature of the book is that it pledges a practice of
reconfiguring the existing boundaries, rather than marginalizing oneself by
merely expanding the scope of the themes.