© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/22106286-12341315
East Asian Publishing and Society 8 (2018) 1-33
brill.com/eaps
EAST ASIAN
PUBLISHING
AND
SOCIETY
Social Authorship and the Production of Texts in
Late Chosŏn: An Analytical Bibliography
Jamie Jungmin Yoo
Korea University
crimsonyoo@post.harvard.edu
Abstract
This research aims to revisit the study of the Ch’ŏngjanggwan chŏnsŏ (Complete works
of Yi Tŏngmu, 1741-1793), with particular emphasis on its collaborative production,
transmission, and modern appropriation. By analyzing eight different versions from
North America, Japan, Korea, and China, I explore how each text was constructed
by multiple agencies and constantly transformed through historical transmission. In
the process of the collaborative production of the book, the selection of a primary
author’s work was reinterpreted by the choices of those who received and collected
the given collection of Yi’s writings. Although Yi is considered the author, each manu-
script collection was transformed without his knowledge or consent. Thus, through a
complex process of adaptation and transformation, a multiplicity of agencies involved
in the production of the book have filtered and negotiated the author’s original inten-
tion. Addressing the notion of “social authorship,” this research challenges the solitary
author model as well as the notion of canon as a complete and fixed entity. All the texts
examined in this study were cultural and social products. Ch’ŏngjanggwan chŏnsŏ was
produced and transformed through constant negotiations among the original author,
editors, and readers. Although it has been valued as one of the most important literary
canons of late Chosŏn, the collection was not a closed set of texts; rather, the particular
set of texts in any version is “fluid and flexible,” and transformation during transmis-
sion was expected.
Keywords
analytical bibliography – Ch’ŏngjanggwan chŏnsŏ – literary canon – social authorship –
Yi Tŏngmu