Self Referentiality Of Cognition And De Formation Of Ethnic Boundaries

Self-Referentiality of Cognition and (De)Formation of Ethnic Boundaries

This book develops a new approach towards the formation of the ethnic boundary as a complex interrelation between cognitive operations and ethnic/national boundaries formation process. Korean diaspora in China, Russia, the United States, and Japan illustrate how this process correlates with the nationalism of the host societies, highlighting the differences and similarities. It covers a wide range of topics, from politics and economics to arts, mass culture and psychology, from comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives, at the same time avoiding eclectic combinations of different spheres of knowledge. This book challenges interactionist and post-modernist paradigms that dominate today’s social science and facilitates dialogue between social and natural scientists, especially cognitive studies to promote more complex and still systematic approach towards society. It combines in-depth research, comparative perspectives and theoretical thoroughness. It appeals to anyone interested in history, culture, economic and other aspects of Korean migration; the general theory and practice of migration; East Asian studies, Asian American studies, Russian studies and studies on social complexity and cognition.

Preaching to Korean Immigrants

In terms of practical-theology’s critical reflection on marginalized people’s wounds in a wider society, this book investigates the question, “How to proclaim the good news in response to first-generation Korean immigrants’ contextual suffering in the United Sates?” To answer the question, the book starts with investigating Korean immigrant hearers’ contextual predicaments in a new land to point out emerging practical-theological issues in relation to the practice of preaching. In this book, the primary subjects are first-generation Korean immigrants, especially those who have relatively low socio-economic status and struggle with the purpose of their lives as immigrants, particularly those whose material dreams have been shattered. In order to proclaim the good news, this book proposes a more appropriate immigrant theology for/in the practice of preaching by reclaiming the priorities of God’s future in our lives and confirming God’s active identification with Korean immigrant congregations in the depths of their predicament. Such reconstructive work for immigrant theology arises in response to their existential hardships, marginality, ethnic discrimination, and relative powerlessness in life. While acknowledging both the possibilities and limits of the diverse forms of current Korean immigrant preaching, the book then offers a strategic proposal for a new homiletic theory, namely “a psalmic-theological homiletic.” This proposed homiletic is deeply rooted in the theology of the Psalms and their rhetorical movement. This re-envisioned mode of eschatological and prophetic preaching in times of difficulty recovers ancient Israel’s psalmic, rhetorical tradition that aims toward faith. Its theological-rhetorical strategy intends to both transform hearers’ habitus of living in faith and enhance their hope-filled life through communal anticipation of God’s coming future on the margins. Specifically, this proposed homiletic critically adopts key features from psalms of lament and their typical, fourfold theological-rhetorical movement (i.e., lament, retelling a story, confessional doxology, and obedient vow) as now core elements of a revised Korean-immigrant preaching practice.

Caste, Nationalism and Ethnicity