Yun Ch’i-ho’s Diaries: Protestant Christianity and the Quest for Self-Reliance in Korea’s “Enlightenment” with Hannah Amaris Roh

Join Dr. Hannah Amaris Roh, a cultural critic and essayist, as she explores the worlds in the diaries of Yun Chi'i-ho, a key figure in Korean history. The “enlightenment” (kaehwa) in early modern Korea was entwined with Protestant Christianity, industrial capitalism, and the Westernization of Korea’s social, political and educational institutions. One of the earliest Korean converts to Protestant Christianity, Yun Ch’i-ho (1864–1945) was a seminal figure in the Korean intelligentsia which spearheaded this movement to “modernize” Korea. This talk examines Yun’s posthumously published diaries, which provide an intimate portrait of Yun’s turn to Christian theology to make sense of Korea’s position in a changing world order. Yun’s diaries reveal that his religious conversion was also an ethical and political conversion — an embrace of the American doctrine of self-reliance. By undertaking a critical reading of Yun’s writings, this presentation addresses the following question: How exactly did Protestant Christianity reconfigure one’s sense of ethical and political subjectivity amid the global rise of industrial capitalism and Western liberalism in turn-of-the-century Korea?