The Cultural Politics of Women’s Gyoyang(教養), 1930s - 1940s

Ah-reum Kim

This study aims to analyze the mechanism for discoursive constitution of women’s subject through the concept of women’s gyoyang(教養). The modern aspect of this concept was appreciated via Japanese concept of kyoyo in accordance with feminine discourse in late Japanese imperialism. Accordingly, the analysis will reveal the nature of the concept of women’s gyoyang mainly appeared in women’s magazine published both in Korean and Japanese during the 1930s-1940s. As a result, women’s gyoyang constitutes gendered modern sentiment such as harmony and the merriness, for encouraging women’s active obedience to discourse on “wise –mother and good-wife” and on “Madam in the rear guard”. The eclecticism of one’s spontaneity and enlightenment was key to understand the role of women’s gyoyang in forming women’s subject. The print media such as women’s magazine and the great books for women invests the concept of women’s gyoyang with intellectual authority while expanding its scope of knowledge.

Ah-reum Kim is a PhD Candidate at University of Tokyo, studying Interdisciplinary Information Studies. She graduated her Master’s course at Seoul National University, and the title of her thesis was “Aspects of Postwar Korean Public Sphere: Focused on Formation of Intellectual Community Centered on the Sasanggye 1953-1960.”


Date & Time: June 2 (Thur) 2016, 12:00-1:00pm
Location: SNUAC #406

*The seminar will be in Korean