Reading the Emotions of Justice

4 Entries | Curated by UCLA Korean History and Culture Digital Museum

Jisoo Kim's monograph, The Emotions of Justice: Gender, Status, and Legal Performance in Choson Korea was published in 2015 by University of Washington Press. It stands as an important contribution to the understanding of law, gender, and society in the Chosŏn period.


Through this tour, UCLA students offer their perspectives from having read Emotions of Justice. Included here are their essays, interpretations, and perspectives.


 (https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295742694/the-emotions-of-justice/)

In Chosŏn society, wŏn (Hangul:원, 冤) described intense negative emotions, often distress, that came from feelings of injustice. Wŏn played an integral role in justice, lawmaking, and daily life in Choson Korea. Wŏn allowed people of different classes and genders to gain justice through the legal system, breaking down gender, social, and economic barriers in Choson Korea. Judiciaries considered a…
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This story is adapted from the Introduction of Jisoo Kim’s The Emotions of Justice. This story demonstrates that female slaves had the same capacity for legal representation as anyone else in Chosŏn. Kim explains the significance of an emotion called wŏn in how slaves retained these rights in the…
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The goal of this project is to visually recreate the stories in the form of a comic strip from Jisoo Kim’s research in Chapter Five of her book the Emotions of Justice. Throughout this chapter, Kim includes stories of individuals who petitioned on behalf of their family members to highlight the way…
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  Do you think that negative emotions can cause natural disasters? Would you enact laws to help relieve negative emotions? Well, that is exactly what Chosŏn Korea did. The Chosŏn dynasty (1392-1910) was Korea's longest-lasting dynasty. It is typically characterized by its strong Confucian influence and its rigid hierarchical and patriarchal social structure. However, less well understood…
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