Re-Thinking Religious Traditions and Practices of Korea

Dear Colleagues,

While there has undoubtedly been substantial research into Korea’s religious intellectual history, it has sometimes been caught up in nationalist tropes, presenting scholars of the past as cultural heroes who are rarely criticised, while women, in particular, have been marginalised and ignored to a large degree. Other figures, of all genders and orientations, have also been marginalised in modern Korea due to the lingering legacy of colonialism and dominant genealogical methodologies narratives, both internal and external to Korean scholarship, across multiple disciplines.

This Special Issue calls for more comparative studies and interdisciplinary perspectives on Korea’s philosophical and religious thought. We are looking for innovative techniques, approaches, theories, and methods that lead to more fruitful encounters with religion as a historical, embodied, and socially dynamic phenomenon.

Our main goal for this Special Issue is to promote the growth of interdisciplinary and innovative research methodologies within the study of the religious intellectual history of Korea and its religious practices. Overall, our goal is to show how various multilayered and nonreductive techniques and approaches may improve our comprehension of Korea’s religious traditions and practices.

We have a particular interest in highlighting research that may include (1) collaborative research across cultural boundaries, (2) diverse contexts and approaches, (3) rejections of an exclusive reliance on singular perspectives or methodologies, (4) research drawing from a transnational perspective, and (5) unique perspectives on the effects of religion as experiential and entwined with everyday life (both sociological and historical). The call is open to any research in relevant subject areas across the humanities and social sciences.

This issue of Religions is posed to collect a series of mutually complementary scholarly contributions, reflecting the intertwining trajectory of philosophical and religious traditions in Korea’s past and present, shaping their futures.

To this end, we ask contributors to consider, some of the following overarching issues:

• Have key figures been sufficiently critically examined? Which figures have been neglected? Which have been overstudied and why?
• How can ideas from Korea’s religious traditions be helpful for us today in the 21st century?
• Which critical theories might be helpful in broadening our understanding of important religions, institutions, practices, theories, and key figures?
• How can a re-examination of material culture and artifacts reveal new insights into religious beliefs and practices in Korea, both past and present?
• How does religion generate dynamic phenomenological experiences and intensities that shape both communities and subjectivities?

Dr. Kevin N. Cawley
Dr. David J. Kim
Guest Editors

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• Korean religion
• Confucianism
• Buddhism
• Shamanism
• new religious movements
• transculturalism
• comparative studies
• everyday life
• magic and divination