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February 9, 2012
Date: Thursday, March 29, 2012
Time: 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Location: 208N, North House
SPEAKERS:
Nicholas Harkness
Speaker
Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University
Ito Peng
Chair
Professor, Department of Sociology; Associate Dean, Interdisciplinary & International Affairs, Faculty of Arts and Science; Interim Director, Centre for the Study of Korea, University of Toronto
CONTACT INFO:
Email Aga Baranowska, or visit the event page
DESCRIPTION:
This lecture discusses the aesthetics of sound and the ethics of bodily practice in South Korean Christian culture. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Seoul’s Protestant churches and colleges of music, I focus specifically on the way European-style classical singing (sǒngak) has emerged an emblem modern Christian personhood and national advancement. In particular, I explore how sǒngak singing in Korean churches has moved away from the coded affect of suffering and hardship that pervaded Korea’s 20th century expressive culture, thus presenting a stark contrast to styles of vocalization normally associated with the past.
Nicholas Harkness received his PhD from the University of Chicago, specializing in the semiotic anthropology of communication. His dissertation, “The Voices of Seoul: Sound, Body, and Christianity in South Korea,” was an ethnographic study of singing and the aesthetics of progress among Korean Evangelical Christians. He also has written on language and religion, paralinguistics and affect, performance and ritual, and the role of language structure in social differentiation. His research on the human voice in culture has led him to a more general interest in the anthropology of qualitative experience, and he currently is co-editing a special journal issue on this topic. Future research topics include intimacy and status in urban South Korea, and Korean linguistic “sound symbolism” as a semiotic window into social and material change.
MAIN SPONSOR: Centre for the Study of Korea
CO-SPONSOR: Asian Institute