• Journal of architectural history
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.27-42
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• 2018

This study aims to reinterpret Jeonggwanheon(靜觀軒) in terms of its use and architectural style after restoration work through the recently discovered [Deoksugung Palace's original plan](1915). It is presupposed that the existing interpretation of Jeonggwanheon, such as its status as the banquet hall of the Imperial Empire and the place where Emperor Gojong enjoyed coffee here, was a fantasy made from the transformation after the 1930s. When it was built around 1900, Jeonggwanheon arranged small and large rooms around the corridor in the center, and the porch surrounded the three sides of the building. From 1900 to 1907, there is no remaining record telling us who did what or when something happened in Jeonggwanheon except for several portraits of Emperor Gojong and his son which were drawn in 1902. The mixed use of brickwork and wooden porch are found in many of American style houses built in Incheon and Seoul at that time. Especially, the style and decoration of wooden porch seem to be influenced by Queen Anne style in the 19th century in America.

• Acta Via Serica
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.119-138
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• 2018

The dragon of the East was an object of worship and an authority to make rain, unlike the West. The dragon image, one of the positively accepted Chinese motifs with the blue-and-white porcelain of the Ming dynasty by the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century, was combined with gigantic saw-edged leaves to create a genre in Saz style. By combining Eastern dragons with plant motifs instead of clouds, dragons were no longer accepted as authority and nobility but as symbols of life and longevity. Unlike Iran and other countries, the image of dragons in Turkish miniature paintings has evolved into a unique style using Turkish calligraphy. The stylistic feature is that a thick black line that gives the impression of calligraphy forms the dragon's back or a huge saz leaf stalk and forms the axis of the screen. Most of the work was black ink drawing, not painting, and partly lightly painted. In the development stage, the dragon appears as a protagonist on the screen of the early works, but the dragon retreats to the latter half and the saz leaves play a leading role on the screen. A common feature in all paintings, whether early or late, is that they have a militant character and create tension on the screen. From the viewpoint of comparative culture, Turkish dragon miniature drawings of the 16thcentury Ottoman period and the Joseon dynasty are somewhat similar in that they are based on calligraphic character and desire for longevity and loyalty, and are drawn according to certain iconic principles.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.99-109
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• 2007

In the 19th century, a series of study by Hittorff, Semper, Ruskin, and others on architectural polychromy in various perspectives appeared. This presumed that the architectural polychromy could become an essential part of architectural composition and contribute to create new architectural style, if not, at least new architectural and cultural context of the 19th century, the period when it is considered that the stylistic evolution in architecture is absent. In the course of the stylistic development of church architecture of the 19th century in France, the architectural polychromy, grounded in a theory of representation, played a critical role as one of the main sources to create new architectural vision. The church architecture during the Second Empire in France was particularly susceptible to be influenced by this inevitable phenomenon, which signified an epistemological mutation in architectural perception beyond optical and perspective effect in the history of architecture. Here the study attempts to recognize the aesthetic value of the architectural polychromy in the 19th century, and investigate its application, as not just an aspect of architectural embellishment but an indispensable portion of architectural vocabulary, on the church architecture in France throughout the 19th century, then to define its role in creating new architectural environment.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.57 no.6
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• pp.575-580
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• 2019

The aim of this study is to determine the species of parasites that affected the inhabitants of the city of Acre on the coast of the eastern Mediterranean during the Ottoman Period. This is the first archaeological study of parasites in the Ottoman Empire. We analysed sediment from a latrine dating to the early 1800s for the presence of helminth eggs and protozoan parasites which caused dysentery. The samples were examined using light microscopy and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits. We found evidence for roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides), whipworm (Trichuris trichiura), fish tapeworm (Dibothriocephalus sp.), Taenia tapeworm (Taenia sp.), lancet liver fluke (Dicrocoelium dendriticum), and the protozoa Giardia duodenalis and Entamoeba histolytica. The parasite taxa recovered demonstrate the breadth of species present in this coastal city. We consider the effect of Ottoman Period diet, culture, trade and sanitation upon risk of parasitism in this community living 200 years ago.

• Acta Via Serica
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.23-48
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• 2018

The Silk Road usually implies a network of trade and communications that stretched from east to west and connected China and the countries of the Far East via Central Asia and the Middle East to the eastern Mediterranean, or through the northern coast of the Caspian Sea and the Volga basin to the Black Sea coast. However, at certain historical stages, a network of maritime and overland routes stretching from north to south, commonly called the Volga-Caspian trade route, also played a significant role in international trade and cultural contacts. The geopolitical realities of the early Middle Ages relating to the relationship of Byzantium, the Sassanid Empire, and the West Turkic Khaganate, the advance of the Arab Caliphate to the north, the spread of Islam in the Volga region, the glories and fall of the Khazar State, and the Scandinavian campaigns in the Caucasus, closely intertwined with the history of transport and communications connecting the north and south through the Volga-Caspian route. In a later era, the interests of the Mongolian Uluses, and then the political and economic aspirations of the Ottoman Empire, the Safavid State, and Russia, collided or combined on these routes. The article discusses trade contacts existing between the north and the south in the 15th and first half of the 17th century along the routes on the western coast of the Caspian Sea.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.33
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• pp.263-286
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• 2013

Is this a right way in politics that attitude of Japanese scholars to separate Natsume Soseki from the expansionism of pre-war Japan to protect 'sanctity'? Nowadays, most Japanese scholars are regarded to share the desire that minimize the memory of the behavior of Japanese Imperialism in East Asia, such as Korea, China, etc. Furthermore, 'the desire to minimize' inescapably concluded in avoidance, concealment, at last the temptation of deliberate misleading. Until now, the controversy about the Natsume Soseki's travel to Korea and Manchuria has repeated in defence and criticism surrounding the self-awareness and recognition of others of Natsume Soseki, making the expression in a record of Natsume's travel as the subject of study, for example, the degrading expression about Chosun people and scorn for Chinese and Russian. This paper will investigate that Natsume's travel is the political practice which is combined with the desire for the empire, focusing on the political context in the action of journey of Natsume and its contents other than the expression itself.

• Acta Via Serica
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.135-150
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• 2018

Ali Bey $H{\ddot{u}}seyinzade$ (1864-1940) was one of the most significant Azerbaijani Turkish intellectuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, formulating Azerbaijani national identity around its Turkish, Islamic and territorial dimensions. His solution to the ambiguities of the identity crisis among the Turkic-Muslim people of Azerbaijan was Turkification, Islamization and Europeanization for the Turkic and Muslim peoples of the Caucasus and Ottoman Turkey. Ali Bey $H{\ddot{u}}seyinzade$ was an influential Azerbaijani Turkish intellectual who had a direct impact on Turkish nationalists in the late Ottoman Empire and early Republican Turkey. $H{\ddot{u}}seyinzade^{\prime}s$ formulation of the triple processes of Turkification, Islamization and Europeanization spread among the Azerbaijani and Ottoman Turkish intellectuals in their respective countries. This article aims to discuss the ideas of Ali Bey $H{\ddot{u}}seyinzade$, especially regarding nationality, religion and Westernism and their impact on intellectuals and policy makers in the Caucasus and Turkey. His physical odyssey from Tsarist Russia into the Ottoman Empire is indicative of his ideological proclivities and his subsequent influence on the Turkish-speaking peoples in the two major empires in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

• Acta Via Serica
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.25-49
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• 2020

This essay, based on an oral presentation, provides the non-specialist, with an evaluation of the Mongols' influence and China and, to a lesser extent, on Russia and the Middle East. Starting in the 1980s, specialists challenged the conventional wisdom about the Mongol Empire's almost entirely destructive influence on global history. They asserted that Mongols promoted vital economic, social, and cultural exchanges among civilizations. Chinggis Khan, Khubilai Khan, and other rulers supported trade, adopted policies of toleration toward foreign religions, and served as patrons of the arts, architecture, and the theater. Eurasian history starts with the Mongols. Exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art confirmed that the Mongol era witnessed extraordinary developments in painting, ceramics, manuscript illustration, and textiles. To be sure, specialists did not ignore the destruction and killings that the Mongols engendered. This reevaluation has prompted both sophisticated analyses of the Mongols' legacy in Eurasian history. The Ming dynasty, the Mongols' successor in China, adopted some of the principles of Mongol military organization and tactics and were exposed to Tibetan Buddhism and Persian astronomy and medicine. The Mongols introduced agricultural techniques, porcelain, and artistic motifs to the Middle East, and supported the writing of histories. They also promoted Sufism in the Islamic world and influenced Russian government, trade, and art, among other impacts. Europeans became aware, via Marco Polo who traveled through the Mongols' domains, of Asian products, as well as technological, scientific, and philosophical innovations in the East and were motivated to find sea routes to South and East Asia.

• English & American cultural studies
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.93-113
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• 2018

This paper examines C. S. Lewis's view of myth and religion in the mid-twentieth century England. Lewis provided his social and cultural criticisms for materialistic contemporary culture and a decline in religiosity in Till We Have Faces (1956). Under the agitated influence of the time period and social movements in which he had lived, Lewis's writing uncovers dynamic interactions with the traumatized world aroused by two World Wars and the apocalyptic aura of an upcoming new world. The narrative of Lewis's novel Till We Have Faces, in a larger perspective, presents the mixtures of mythic motifs and nostalgia. On the plot basis, the novel depicts contemporary spiritual blindness and national dissociations. Many criticisms of Lewis have not been exploring the author's keen knowledge of the modern society because of his conspicuous depictions of evil and grace involving religious and medievalist views. Nonetheless, the paper explores how Lewis's apocalyptical views, related to turmoil and nostalgia, uncover complexities of his religious dilemmas between restoring the deteriorated status of the privileged. Ultimately, it analyzes Lewis's consciousness of the social changes related to the larger, more often than not psychological, context of redefining the national empire.

• Journal of architectural history
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.41-56
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• 2020

This study attempted to clarify the modern transition process of the urban space through the construction and change of the Imperial Palace as a central facility in Seoul. The road renovation of Seoul, which started in 1895, has established a modern, circular transportation system centered on Gyeongun-gung Palace, the Imperial Palace along with the tram line. In this urban structure, the imperial palace as a central facility of the former monarchy, unlike the previous palaces, could not be located at the top of a road with a longitudinal axis, and it expanded its territory around foreign legionaries and placed a new government office around the perimeter. However, the royal palace was moved to Changdeokgung Palace in 1907 with the throne of Sunjong. With the creation of Changdeokgung, which is the periphery of Seoul, as new royal palace, the status of the imperial palace in the city was remarkably weakened, and Gyeongun-gung, located in the center of Seoul, was also reduced to the current Deoksugung area, turning into an urban facility facing a modern street.