Description
The lineage novel flourished in Korea from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth century. These vast works unfold genealogically, tracing the lives of several generations. New storylines, often written by different authors, follow the lives of the descendants of the original protagonists, offering encyclopedic accounts of domestic life cycles and relationships. Elite women transcribed these texts-which span tens and even hundreds of volumes-in exquisite vernacular calligraphy and transmitted them through generations in their families.
In Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea, Ksenia Chizhova foregrounds lineage novels and the domestic world in which they were read to recast the social transformations of Choson Korea and the development of early modern Korean literature. She demonstrates women's centrality to the creation of elite vernacular Korean practices and argues that domestic-focused genres such as lineage novels, commemorative texts, and family tales shed light on the emergence and perpetuation of patrilineal kinship structures. The proliferation of kinship narratives in the Choson period illuminates the changing affective contours of familial bonds and how the domestic space functioned as a site of their everyday experience. Drawing on an archive of women-centered elite vernacular texts, Chizhova uncovers the structures of feelings and conceptions of selfhood beneath official genealogies and legal statutes, revealing that kinship is as much a textual as a social practice. Shedding new light on Korean literary history and questions of Korea's modernity, this book also offers a broader lens on the global rise of the novel.
About the Author
Ksenia Chizhova is assistant professor of East Asian studies at Princeton University.
Reviews
Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea is a methodologically brilliant introduction to Korean lineage novels and the domestic worlds in which they were produced and consumed. Written as women were becoming ever more constrained by patriarchal kinship ideals, lineage novels are a rich archive of the often unruly emotional responses to the affective restructuring of the domestic realm. -- Maram Epstein, author of Competing Discourses: Orthodoxy, Authenticity, and Engendered Meanings in Late-Imperial Chinese Fiction
Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea sets an admirable standard for emerging studies of premodern Korean literature with its in-depth historical analysis, theoretical sophistication, and measured, clear writing style. -- Sunyoung Park, author of The Proletarian Wave: Literature and Leftist Culture in Colonial Korea, 1910-1945
Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea offers a captivating story about the rise and fall of the lineage novel, walking us through the ways in which the kinship feelings and practices of elite families cast not only the form and content of this genre but also its production and circulation. Compelling testimony of how our deep understanding of history can help us appreciate the aesthetics of bygone days and why literature still matters. -- Yoon Sun Yang, author of From Domestic Women to Sensitive Young Men: Translating the Individual in Early Colonial Korea
In this sweeping account of the political, social, and cultural life of seventeenth- to early twentieth-century Korea, Ksenia Chizhova provocatively asks, How did Koreans do kinship? Her fascinating answers offer glimpses into the unruly emotions of everyday life and the oft-tumultuous relations between genders and generations. This is early modern Korea as never before seen and literary history at its best. -- Andre Schmid, author of Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919
Eloquent, detailed, and original, this book's account of the lineage trope, vernacular writing, gender, and readership sheds new light on the early modern novel in East Asian literary history. -- Ning Ma, author of The Age of Silver: The Rise of the Novel East and West
An impressive, well researched book that opens a new vista on the history of premodern Korean literature. . . [Chizhova's] work deserves highest praise for its meticulous scholarship and fascinating narrative. It will interest scholars and students of Korean literature as well as sociologists/anthropologists who want to learn about the intricate human relationships that reigned in the daily life of elite households in eighteenth-century Korea. -- Martina Deuchler * The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies *
This book is a sophisticated and engaging study of early modern Korean lineage novels, and it is highly recommended to anybody with interest in premodern Korea and East Asia, the gender and language politics of literary traditions, and, incidentally, global histories of the novel. -- Wiebke Denecke * Journal of Asian Studies *
Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea is a fascinating read, and Chizhova does an excellent job in outlining the development, structure and history of the lineage novel. -- Tony Malone * Tony's Reading List *
Chizhova combines historical and literary criticism superbly, showing broad knowledge of these and other disciplines, especially material culture and gender. Her book is also original in its approach and methodology. -- Francisco Gomez Martos * Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas *
Awards
Winner of Hong Yung Lee Book Award in Korean Studies, Center for Korean Studies at UC Berkeley 2022. Commended for James B. Palais Prize, Association for Asian Studies 2023.
Book Information
ISBN 9780231187817
Author Ksenia Chizhova
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press
In Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea, Ksenia Chizhova foregrounds lineage novels and the domestic world in which they were read to recast the social transformations of Choson Korea and the development of early modern Korean literature. She demonstrates women's centrality to the creation of elite vernacular Korean practices and argues that domestic-focused genres such as lineage novels, commemorative texts, and family tales shed light on the emergence and perpetuation of patrilineal kinship structures. The proliferation of kinship narratives in the Choson period illuminates the changing affective contours of familial bonds and how the domestic space functioned as a site of their everyday experience. Drawing on an archive of women-centered elite vernacular texts, Chizhova uncovers the structures of feelings and conceptions of selfhood beneath official genealogies and legal statutes, revealing that kinship is as much a textual as a social practice. Shedding new light on Korean literary history and questions of Korea's modernity, this book also offers a broader lens on the global rise of the novel.
About the Author
Ksenia Chizhova is assistant professor of East Asian studies at Princeton University.
Reviews
Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea is a methodologically brilliant introduction to Korean lineage novels and the domestic worlds in which they were produced and consumed. Written as women were becoming ever more constrained by patriarchal kinship ideals, lineage novels are a rich archive of the often unruly emotional responses to the affective restructuring of the domestic realm. -- Maram Epstein, author of Competing Discourses: Orthodoxy, Authenticity, and Engendered Meanings in Late-Imperial Chinese Fiction
Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea sets an admirable standard for emerging studies of premodern Korean literature with its in-depth historical analysis, theoretical sophistication, and measured, clear writing style. -- Sunyoung Park, author of The Proletarian Wave: Literature and Leftist Culture in Colonial Korea, 1910-1945
Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea offers a captivating story about the rise and fall of the lineage novel, walking us through the ways in which the kinship feelings and practices of elite families cast not only the form and content of this genre but also its production and circulation. Compelling testimony of how our deep understanding of history can help us appreciate the aesthetics of bygone days and why literature still matters. -- Yoon Sun Yang, author of From Domestic Women to Sensitive Young Men: Translating the Individual in Early Colonial Korea
In this sweeping account of the political, social, and cultural life of seventeenth- to early twentieth-century Korea, Ksenia Chizhova provocatively asks, How did Koreans do kinship? Her fascinating answers offer glimpses into the unruly emotions of everyday life and the oft-tumultuous relations between genders and generations. This is early modern Korea as never before seen and literary history at its best. -- Andre Schmid, author of Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919
Eloquent, detailed, and original, this book's account of the lineage trope, vernacular writing, gender, and readership sheds new light on the early modern novel in East Asian literary history. -- Ning Ma, author of The Age of Silver: The Rise of the Novel East and West
An impressive, well researched book that opens a new vista on the history of premodern Korean literature. . . [Chizhova's] work deserves highest praise for its meticulous scholarship and fascinating narrative. It will interest scholars and students of Korean literature as well as sociologists/anthropologists who want to learn about the intricate human relationships that reigned in the daily life of elite households in eighteenth-century Korea. -- Martina Deuchler * The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies *
This book is a sophisticated and engaging study of early modern Korean lineage novels, and it is highly recommended to anybody with interest in premodern Korea and East Asia, the gender and language politics of literary traditions, and, incidentally, global histories of the novel. -- Wiebke Denecke * Journal of Asian Studies *
Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea is a fascinating read, and Chizhova does an excellent job in outlining the development, structure and history of the lineage novel. -- Tony Malone * Tony's Reading List *
Chizhova combines historical and literary criticism superbly, showing broad knowledge of these and other disciplines, especially material culture and gender. Her book is also original in its approach and methodology. -- Francisco Gomez Martos * Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas *
Awards
Winner of Hong Yung Lee Book Award in Korean Studies, Center for Korean Studies at UC Berkeley 2022. Commended for James B. Palais Prize, Association for Asian Studies 2023.
Book Information
ISBN 9780231187817
Author Ksenia Chizhova
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press
