Returning from the AAR

From November 6th to 10th I attended the annual meeting of the American Academy of religion. It was a a lot of fun and I learned a great deal. I presented a paper on Catholic visions of the afterlife and how they were a factor in whether a Catholic apostatized or not under torture. I also got to meet a lot of nice people, heard some great papers, and learned some things I can use in my own research, especially my dissertation.

One thing that is interesting about AAR is that it includes people looking at things from a religious studies perspective (that is, one that is meant to be religiously neutral) and others who are looking from the perspective of a specific religion. For example, I attended a panel on critical issues in Buddhism. One of the papers was on how Buddhists need to study the texts and histories of other Buddhists. The person presenting the paper thought there was too much Buddhist sectarianism (I guess there are plenty of arguments between Mahayana and Theravada Buddhists) and that Buddhists need to read their history more critically. For example, the author pointed out that there are a lot of Buddhists who believe that the Heart Sutra was written during the lifetime of Shakyamuni when it would in fact seem that it was not. The presenter was lecturing on these views at a Buddhist center. I wonder if they will gain much currency and if they do what affect they will have on Buddhism. Many would argue that too much textual criticism is harmful to a religion, measured in terms of number of people belonging/converting to that tradition.

The other Buddhist paper that I heard in that panel (I had to leave early to have brunch with my adviser) was also interesting. It was on Buddhist sexual ethics. The panelist discussed how Buddhist teachings on sexual morality had developed. He focused a lot on adultery. Apparently in some of the early texts married men could have sexual relations with slaves or prostitutes (so long as she was paid directly; no pimps) that was acceptable and did not count as adultery. Having relations with another man's wife or having pre-marital sex with one's fiance did count as adultery however. The author ended his paper with a defense of Buddhist teachings against adultery but he ran out of time before he could say what definition of adultery he was using. I need to see if I can find out. Usually when I think of adultery I think it is pretty straight forward what it is but perhaps it's not so simple. Though in such things, personally, I say err on the side of caution!

I went to one interesting set of theological papers that were arguing about the atonement. I don't understand much theology but they seemed to be saying that Christians should move to a non-violent explanation of how the atonement works. This was striking to me because that seemed to play down the importance of the crucifixion, though one of the panelists said he was not doing that, so I'm not sure exactly what it means but it seemed rather curious to me. One panelist also seemed to play down the importance of suffering which also surprised me. The weird thing about that panel was that one panelist spent about 1/4 of his time criticizing a certain book. During the question and answer period the author got up and said that the panelist had misunderstood his book. I always dread doing something like that.

It's really interesting to see these different perspectives at work. My own paper was pretty much a straight forward history from a secular academic perspective. I like seeing these different perspectives but I think it might be good to make sure you don't have conflicting perspectives on the same panel. I attended a panel in which there were some problems because someone presented a paper from a theological standpoint that many members of the audience thought was to be taken from a historical perspective. This led to some problems.

An Chunggun Commemoration Mass

One of the main focuses of my study is a man named An Chunggun. He is most famous for assassinating Ito Hirobumi, the first Resident-General of Korea and because of that, is a great nationalist hero in Korea today. He was also a Catholic. He didn't receive much public recognition as such from the Church until 1993 when Cardinal Stephen Kim Suhwan declared him to be both a good patriot and a good Catholic. After that, for several years there were masses in his honor. Then they stopped. After going to the secular services commemorating the 99th anniversary of his execution on March 26th 2009 I went to Myeongdong Cathederal (the central church for Catholics, located in downtown Seoul) but I didn't see anything having to do with him. This year, on October 26th, the 100th anniversary of the day he shot Ito Hirobumi, it was decided to have a mass in Myeongdong in his honor. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend.

Outside the church was a stand selling pottery and plates with An's calligraphy on them. He signed his calligraphy with his hand print, made distinctive because his ring finger was missing the tip above the knuckle. He cut it off and wrote "Korean Independence" in his blood on a Korean flag. This was a traditional way of showing sincerity.

This is one of the side doors into the cathedral. The people in the stand to the left were handing out the mass bulletins and prayer cards.

I need time to study and reflect on this and will include it in my dissertation but there were things that really stuck out to me:

1) A selection from An Chunggun's writing (the part where he describes why and how he cut off the tip of his finger) was used with the other mass readings.

2) There were no prayers for the resting of An's soul or of Ito's soul.

Been away for awhile

Things have been really busy over the last few months and so I haven't updated the blog. I think though that posting on it will help inspire me in my work and might generate some helpful comments so I'm going to give it another shot.

Remembering Roh Mu-hyun

On May 23rd, Roh Mu-hyun, former president of South Korea, commited suicide. At the time, he and his family were under investigation for financial improprieties. On the way to a lecture last week I saw there was an area set aside for people to pay their respects to Mr. Roh. I took a few pictures. I will comment more on this in future entries.

In front of the main temple building there were a few banners behind which was a stage with the president's photo. People were going up and bowing in front of the picture. The banner in the middle says "Praying for President Roh Mu-hyun's passage into Nirvana." The one on the left says "Don't be troubled or resentful." The one on the right says "Are not death and life one?" These two statements are very similar to ones left in the president's suicide note.

People were able to leave messages behind of how they felt.

Here is the stage where people were going up to bow. The line was not that long but it seemed to have a steady stream of people. This was not the only memorial site so I think that's why.

Here, in contrast, is a non-Buddhist memorial site set up at Yonsei University (a Protestant institution).

Roh was baptized a Catholic in 1989 but I think he never practiced that faith very actively. His wife and her family are Buddhist so it seems that Buddhism is the dominant way of remembering him. I'm going to do a bit more research on this and post more in the future.

First Post

I am a graduate student at the University of British Columbia in the department of Asian Studies. I am currently working on my dissertation which focuses on the legitimization of violence. Basically I am looking at two Korean Catholics, Hwang Sayŏng (1776-1801) and An Chunggŭn (1879-1910) and how they justified violence and how the violence they suffered (both were executed by state authorities) was justified.

I have long been wanting to start a Korean religious history blog and have finally made up my mind to do it. This blog will have several purposes. First, I want to try and spread knowledge about Korean religious history. Second, I want to receive comments and criticism on my own take on Korean religious history. I can learn a lot that way which will enable me to be a better teacher and researcher. Third, I want to reflect on what it means to study religion and the various issues someone working in such an area must deal with. I hope that in this area as well, people will make comments.

There are several limitations that I should point to. First, my focus is on Catholicism in Korea. While I have a basic familiarity with other religions in Korea, I am much more comfortable in what I know about Catholicism. Despite that I will try and talk about non-Catholic religions. In fact, I’m hoping that doing so will force me to learn more about these religions. Second, since I am currently working on my dissertation I might not be able to update this blog as often as I would like. For now I am shooting on at least one post a week. Hopefully I can keep up!

I look forward to lots of good comments and criticism!