• 비교문화연구
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• 제25권
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• pp.291-312
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• 2011

The academic world in Korea demands internationally competitive researches at the moment. However, there is a lack of understanding on research trends of Western countries. This research aims to understand how discussions on early modern Japanese plays are developed in Western countries such as America. Also, it aims to consider and compare the present situation of researches on early modern Japanese plays in Western countries, Japan and Korea. In Western countries, modern Japanese plays such as Kabuki and Joruri is accepted and enjoyed as universal plays of the world. It is not only because there is a background of enjoying plays such as Shakespeare's but also researches and translations are accumulated continuously from the early 20th century. In the early 20th century, the main theme of researches was about Kabuki actors in Ukiyoe which was collected because of an interest in orientalism. After 1930s, Japanese arts and handcrafts were sent to art museums in America in order to promote Japanese culture. Also, many Japanese books were donated to university libraries in order to form institutes of Japanology. The war was started when the foundation of Japanology was about to be laid. Students who were interested in Japan were mobilized to the war as agents to understand Japan. After the war, those students started to do researches on Japan on a full scale. There were researchers such as Donald Keen who did researches on Kabuki and Joruri. In western countries, there are researches on patterns of behavior and thoughts of Japanese people, comparison with Shakespeare's plays, dramaturgie, theatricalism as well as censorship of Kabuki during the war and mobilization of Kabuki to the war. It is necessary to understand where my researches are positioned in those research trends. It is also necessary to break away from overlapped and repeated researches of the same point of view and find out new research paradigms.

• 복식
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• 제64권7호
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• pp.172-183
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• 2014

The term "new woman" (신여성 [Sinyeoseong], 新女性) refers to an idealized image of contemporary women during the so-called modern period in East Asia. In Korea, these "modern girls" were also referred to as modan (毛斷), or "cut-hair", reflecting changes in appearances that rejected the traditional value system in favor of "the new" in everyday life. Although it was used to refer to the perceived educated leaders of this new period, it also had the negative connotation of referring to frivolous women only interested in the latest fashion. The popular discourse on this "new woman" was constantly changing during this early modern period in East Asia, ranging from male-driven women's movements to women-driven liberal and socialist movements. The discourse often included ideals of what constituted female impeccability in women's domestic roles and enlightened views on housekeeping, yet in most cases the "new woman" was also expected to be a good wife and mother as well as a successful career woman. The concept of the "new woman" was also accompanied by an upheaval in women's social roles and their physical boundaries, and resulted in women repositioning themselves in the new society. The new look was a way of constructing their bodies to fit their new roles, and this again was rapidly reproduced in visual media. Newspapers, magazines, and plays had gained immense popularity by this time and provided visual material for the age with covers, advertisements, and illustrations. This research will explore the fashion of the "new woman" through archival resources, specifically magazines published in the 1920s and 1930s. It will investigate how women's appearances and the images they pursued reflected the ideal image of the "new woman." Fashion information providers, trendsetters, and levels of popular acceptance will also be examined in the context of the early stage of the fashion industry in East Asia, including production and distribution. Additionally, as the idea of the "new woman" was a worldwide phenomenon throughout the 19th and early 20th century, the effect of Japanese colonialism on the structure of Korean culture and its role as a cultural mediator will also be considered in how the ideal image of beauty was sought, and whether this was a western, colonial, or national preference.