A Modern Buddhist and Colonial Monument: Manufacturing the Great Head Temple T’aegosa in 1938 Downtown Seoul

Le 19 mai 2017

Attention, cette séance aura lieu de 10h à 12h dans la Salle de Séminaire RdC
dans le cadre de séminaire pluridisciplinaire d’études coréennes

Hwansoo Kim
(Duke University, professeur invité de l’EHESS)

présente une conférence intitulée

« A Modern Buddhist and Colonial Monument: Manufacturing the Great Head Temple T’aegosa in 1938 Downtown Seoul »

dans la Salle de Séminaire RdC de la Maison de l’Asie,
22 avenue du président Wilson, 16e Paris.

Résumé

This talk examines the tumultuous process leading up to the completion of the T’aegosa temple and how its construction encapsulated the decades-long endeavor of Korean Buddhist reformers to centralize, unify, and governmentalize Korean Buddhism. In this talk, I trace the history of Korean Buddhists’ struggles to reach this goal and analyze the complex internal and external factors that culminated in the temple’s construction, with its unveiling in 1938 closely followed by the establishment of the unified order of Korean Buddhism, Chogyejong, in 1941. I also analyze the historical debates among Buddhist leaders on how to articulate the institutional role of the temple, how to manufacture the symbolic significance of the building for Korean Buddhism, and how to relate the temple to the colonial government’s policy. I would ultimately like this talk to illuminate the ways in which, despite its colonial space, this architecture came to manifest a locus of Korean Buddhist modern, traditional, and national identity.