IKS Lecture: Sookja Cho, "Toward Immortality: The Hero Ch’oe Ch’iwŏn and a Sillan Odyssey in a Sinocentric World"

The Institute for Korean Studies and Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures Present:

"Toward Immortality: The Hero Ch’oe Ch’iwŏn and a Sillan Odyssey in a Sinocentric World"

Sookja Cho
Arizona State University

Abstract: Ch’oe Ch’iwŏn (b. 857) was a literary genius and an honorable government official of both Silla Korea (57 BCE–935 CE) and Tang China (618–907). He was long celebrated as an iconic figure who fulfilled the dream of Sillan intellectuals. In Chosŏn (1392–1910) literature, Ch’oe then continued to evolve from a historical man into a legendary hero and a mighty god, embodying the longing of Koreans for a powerful protector to shield both their lives and their cultural integrity from the might of China. This development invites a new inquiry into Ch’oe’s legacy among Chosŏn Koreans, suggesting the rise of a new side to the Korean heroic imagination, one which placed Ch’oe at the center of the intricate relationship between China and Korea.

This talk introduces heroic qualities of Ch’oe in Chosŏn fictional narratives and examines what such herorization of Ch’oe reveals about Chosŏn people, their society and culture. The reincarnations and heroization of Ch’oe speak to a deep Korean desire for cultural ascendancy and political power. They evoke the subversive and, until Chosŏn times, the underrepresented perspectives on China concealed within Korean history and literature, bringing forth the plurality of China and of Koreans' attitude(s) toward it.

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Sookja Cho is Associate Professor in the School of International Letters and Cultures at Arizona State University. She holds doctoral degrees in Chinese and Comparative (Korean) Literature from Washington University in St. Louis, and in premodern Chinese Literature from Seoul National University. Her research addresses premodern Korean literature and culture, Sino-Korean exchange and East Asian comparative literature, gender and religious literature, performance literature, and oral storytelling and folk literature. She is the author, among other works, of Transforming Gender and Emotion: The Butterfly Lovers Story in China and Korea (University of Michigan Press, 2018) and The Tale of Cho Ung: A Classic of Vengeance, Loyalty and Romance (Columbia University Press, 2018), and “The Tale of Ch’oe Ch’ŏk,” in Korean Literary Prose: An Anthology (Columbia University Press, 2018).