| Amidst sea changes in Korean culture and society after Korean ports opened in 1876, "women" rose to the public stage. They appeared in newspaper articles as a symbol of backwardness, in novels as a symbol of modernity, and in advertisements as a symbol of consumerism. In the realm of literature, women became readers, writers, and fictional characters. All in all, women seem to have been a keyword of a burgeoning modernity. Despite this context of fundamental change, however, the associations between women and han'guˇl, the vernacular script, and between women and sosoˇl, a general term for fiction, were upheld and reinforced. "Women" in these associations were in part a metaphor for the inferior, and I argue that the persistence of this metaphor within the context of whirlwind change was a result, not of the steady momentum of tradition, but of active reconfiguration and marginalization.; This thesis explores the construction of "women" and "women's reading" through magazines and newspapers published between 1896 and 1934. As part of a sweeping project of modernity during this time, "women's reading" mobilized a vision of what it was appropriate for women to read, how such reading should direct and guide them, and basic presumptions about what constituted women's taste in reading. The dissertation explores these developments in the context of several magazines and a newspaper: Tongnip sinmun ( The Independent), T'aeguˇk hakpo ( Korean Students' Gazette), Kajoˇng chapchi (The Home Magazine), Yoˇjajinam (Women's Guide ), Sinyoˇja (New Woman), and Sinyoˇsoˇng (New Women). Taken together, what emerges is a gradual process of embedding women and women's reading within the realm of popular culture, at a time when rapid change, modern experimentation with new genres, and the influence of Western literary norms were establishing higher or "pure" modern literature. With this context in mind, I argue that the emergence of women was ultimately not about gender but about setting up a new system of pedigree relevant to the new era. |
