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Ghosts of Premodern Korea: Haunting and Balancing the Cosmos

Colloquium | September 17 | 4 p.m. | Institute of East Asian Studies (2223 Fulton, 6th Floor), Conference Room

Speaker: Michael Pettid, Professor of Asian and Asian American Studies, Professor of Asian and Asian American Studies, Binghamton University

Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies (CKS)

Given the significance of death to humans, an understanding of how societies conceive of death, the afterlife, and what might occur to the dead can reveal a great deal of how a given society understands its place within the cosmos. Particularly interesting are those beliefs concerning the condition of the dead after death; specifically, the nature and
function of ghosts.

There are numerous accounts in the literature of the Koryŏ and early Chosŏn periods in Korea that feature encounters with ghosts or beings from beyond the human world. While these accounts can be sometimes humorous or frightening, a more important value is the insight they offer into the way
that the peoples of these times understood death and the afterlife.

Narratives of ghosts can range from didactic tales that aim at altering the lifestyles of the living to those accounts that reveal social fears such as the retaliation of one who wrongly died. This talk will use period accounts from Koryŏ and early Chosŏn to examine how death was understood. This study will thus bring into relief the understandings of these peoples concerning death and the afterlife, and how this was reflected in the lives of the living.

Event Contact: cks@berkeley.edu, 510-642-5674