Editorial Note

Guest edited by Jungwon Kim (Columbia University), this fall 2019 special issue is a first for the Journal of Korean Studies. While JKS has published numerous articles over the years examining multiple dimensions of premodern Korea (including two articles on the Chosŏn dynasty in the spring 2019 issue), "Archives, Archival Practices, and the Writing of History in Premodern Korea" is the first JKS special issue to focus exclusively on the premodern period. Interest in premodern Korea is on the rise in North America, and a cohort of younger scholars engaged in cutting-edge work across disciplines—history, religion, art, performance studies, and literature, to name a few—has emerged. The articles in this special issue tackle the notion of the archive in Chosŏn Korea in exciting and innovative ways. Paying close attention to the multilayered contexts in which divergent forms of recordkeeping—formal and informal—took place in Chosŏn Korea, this special issue casts new light on both premodern practices of documentation and the formation of modern, institutional archives that frame contemporary scholarship. We hope that this special issue paves the way for future collaborations not only on the Chosŏn dynasty but on earlier periods as well.

We include in this volume a transcription of a roundtable discussion on Korean studies in the global humanities that took place at Columbia University in fall 2018. We hope this transcription, a nod to the tradition of publishing roundtable discussions (좌담회) in Korea, contributes to dialogues occurring at conferences and other venues that center on thinking through Korea-related scholarship in relation to transnational, interdisciplinary work. I would like to thank Christina Yi (University of British Columbia) for moderating the roundtable, as well as Stephen Choi (Columbia University), Kira Donnell (University of California, Berkeley), Albert Park (Claremont McKenna College), Alyssa Park (University of Iowa), Evelyn Shih (University of Colorado), and Serk-Bae Suh (University of California, Irvine) for sharing their ideas in a frank, open forum. While this roundtable focused on the modern, a future event and transcription will bring together scholars working on premodern Korea.

The editorial office of the Journal of Korean Studies is housed at the Center for Korean Research, Columbia University. JKS is published by Duke University Press. Publication of the Journal of Korean Studies is made possible by a generous grant from the Academy of Korean Studies. For more information on JKS, please visit the following websites: jks.weai.columbia.edu/; www.dukeupress.edu/journal-of-korean-studies/.