Constructing Religion in Korea under Japanese and American Rule
Presented by John G. Grisafi, Yale University.
The event will take place on September 27, 9:00 am (Seoul Time), September 26, 5:00 pm (Los Angeles Time), September 26, 8:00 pm (New York Time).
Please register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAqd-mrpz0pGNSL1hh-quEldql_A1nhS0ax
“Shūkyō Bunpuzu” [Religious Distribution Map], 1927. Source: 新興の朝鮮 : 附・統計図表及各種分布図 (Government-General in Korea, 1929).
Abstract
What is religion? To what does this word refer, and what is omitted from its definition? Who decides what goes into the category of religion and how, and what impacts do such decision have on how we understand religion? Is it possible to be neutral toward religion and simply let it be determined naturally? In the case of Korea, where the modern word for religion, chonggyo (宗敎), was coined in the 1880s, and which was under foreign rule for nearly four decades in the early twentieth century, outside empires had a profound influence on shaping religion as a concept and category. Based on my ongoing dissertation project, this talk discusses the policies and regulations on religion of the 1910–1945 Japanese Government-General in Korea and 1945–1948 United States Army Military Government in Korea. The emphasis is on the shaping effect that governance has on the notions and perceptions of religion, and on the reality experienced by religious persons and institutions. Both foreign empires played roles in the discursive construction of religion, religions, and religious in modern Korea. Each regime made decisions to prescribe norms regarding religion and establish boundaries around, between, and within religions. This study is an effort demonstrate first, how these foreign empires played an impactful role in shaping religion in modern Korea in accordance with their own objectives and views and, second, how such institution cannot take positions on religion without shaping religion, that neutrality toward religion is a logical impossibility.
Composite of US the lowering of the Japanese flag and subsequent raising of the US flag in Seoul, Korea, on 9 September 1945. Source: United States National Archives and Records Administration.
About the Speaker
John G. Grisafi is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at Yale University. His interests are in Asian religions and philosophies, religious and secular modernity, and Korean history, with a research emphasis on discursive construction of religion and its impacts on society, politics, and epistemology. John’s dissertation project is on the legal and discursive construction of religion in Korea under Japanese colonial rule and US and Soviet military occupation. His other scholarship includes a study of the impacts of early pandemic discourse around Shincheonji and Covid in South Korea, published in Nova Religio in 2021. He previously earned a BA and MA in East Asian Languages & Civilizations from the University of Pennsylvania.