This dissertation explores the values and practices of young, middle-class South Koreans and what it means for them to live a good life. Based on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork, it attends to the pathways and life trajectories of young adults living, studying and working in Seoul, the country’s economic, political, cultural and educational centre. Due to changing economic conditions, it appears to be increasingly difficult for young people today to reproduce middle-class status. In public discourse, these difficulties are expressed in the terms ‘Spec’ or ‘Give-up Generation’. At the same time, young people are starting to question middle-class lifestyles and values and turn to practices which emphasise different standards. The author illustrates how young adults negotiate middle-class ideals by contextualising the values around four key themes – education, marriage, consumption, and work. In doing so, she explores her interlocutors’ thoughts and reflections about middle-class values through a theoretical and methodological framework centred on ordinary ethics and the everyday use of money. This ethnography sheds light on the complex and heterogenous ways young people in South Korea conceptualise and realise the good in their lives, and it focuses attention on the explicitness of ethics and the relationship between money and values in these young Seoulites’ everyday lives and social relations.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1951.

"Girl meets boy. Boy falls for girl. Girl discovers boy is a runaway K-pop idol in hiding." "Faced with the prospect of even more heartbreak and caught up in an international whirlwind that has a life of its own, Merri realizes that she must find a way to mend herself, gain control of her life, and pursue her dreams--her heart and soul depend on it."--Back cover

Established in 1982, the British Association for Korean Studies has published nine sets of Papers in the period 1991–2005 – the outcome of conferences, study days and workshops. The themes of Korea past and Korea present were selected to give the editors and BAKS council the widest choice of options in terms of scholarship, subject matter and interest.

Despite historic summits and spectacular acts of reconciliation between the rival neighbours, promises of improved cross-border relations between North and South Korea have been slow to materialize. In this insightful book, Gabriel Jonsson examines the impact that increased levels of socio-cultural contact has had on inter-Korean relations, the concrete results that have been achieved and how such contact has contributed to closer relations and offers the prospect of reconciliation. With reference to lessons from the German and Yemeni unification, the book examines the development of inter-Korean relations and presents a fascinating view of South Korean perceptions of their neighbours. The book also details the wider political sphere of influence with an analysis of the positions of the United States, Japan, China and Russia on Korean unity. Based primarily on Korean language sources, this volume provides completely unique perspectives on Korean unity.

When Korea began as a newly independent state in 1948, its economy was very underdeveloped and the rule of law was just established. The journey of democratization in Korea was not without challenges. This book traces the history of the legal philosophy development in Korea and highlights Korea's unique experience. This book shows how Western legal philosophy has been accepted in Korea, a non-Western country that has newly introduced the Western legal system and what role the legal philosophy has played in social context. The book also examines academic scholars' intellectual activities in a historical context and how their intellectual products are yielded through their continuous response to the circumstances of the time. It specifically looks at the many challenging tasks legal philosophers had to overcome in a society when the rule of law and democracy had not yet settled. The book explores how Korean legal philosophers coped during such unique historical situations. It also illustrates how Korean scholars accepted German and Anglo-American legal philosophies and integrated them to change social realities of Korea. Through Korea’s experience, this book will provide insights into how modern legal philosophy develops in a new state and what legal philosophers' responses would be like during such a process. The developing process of legal philosophy in Korean society will interest not only readers in countries who have had similar experiences to Korea, but also readers in the West.

With shocking revelations that made headlines in papers across the country, Pulitzer-Prize-winner Tim Weiner gets at the truth behind the CIA and uncovers here why nearly every CIA Director has left the agency in worse shape than when he found it; and how these profound failures jeopardize our national security.

This book explains the origin and development of premillennial eschatology in the evangelical Korean church from 1884 to 1945. It examines the eschatological implications of Korean religious thought, the eschatology of American missionaries, the horrific experience of Japanese occupation (1910-1945), and the enforcement of Shinto shrine worship in light of Korean Christians' tenacious hold on dispensational premillennialism. This book explains the place of premillennialism in the Christian life, and it deals with the cultural underpinnings of Christianity in Korean history by bringing to bear the complex social, political, and religious elements of Korean culture.