Journal article
(En)Gendering a New Nation in Missionary Discourse
Korea journal, Vol.46(1), pp.139-169
2006
Abstract
The article analyzes William Arthur Noble’s novel, Ewa: A Tale of Korea (1906) as an example of missionary discourse that reflects the complex dynamics of a contact zone where Koreans and American missionaries encountered each other with drastically different cultural assumptions and developed ongoing relations in response to that contact under specific historical circumstances. It pays particular attention to Noble’s narrative as a window to understanding his Western subjectivity, which is shaped and reshaped by contact. Examining the authorial motives in employing a first-person narrative, the article shows how Noble engages in a complex discourse on civilization, race, gender, and nationhood that goes beyond the typical binary oppositional spectrum that locates the West as superior and the Other as inferior. It concludes that although Noble ultimately privileges Christianity as the foundation of a new Korea, his intimate knowledge of Korea offers him a platform from which he not only represents Koreans as he understands them but also recasts his own Western culture and society through the mirror of Korean tradition.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- (En)Gendering a New Nation in Missionary Discourse
- Creators
- Hyaeweol Choi
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Korea journal, Vol.46(1), pp.139-169
- ISSN
- 0023-3900
- eISSN
- 2733-9343
- Publisher
- The Academy of Korean Studies
- Alternative title
- An Analysis of W. Arthur Noble`s Ewa
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2006
- Academic Unit
- Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies; Religious Studies
- Record Identifier
- 9984269224902771
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