Analysing a series of narratives that described women who transformed the worlds they lived in, this book introduces students and scholars to the lives of the women of Joseon Korea 1550-1700. Exploring their interactions both at home and abroad, this book shows how the agency of these women reached far across the globe
The narratives explored here appeared in a wide range of written, visual and material forms, from woodcuts and printed texts, letters, journals, and chronicles to inscriptions on monuments, and were produced by Joseon-s elite officials, grieving families, Japanese civic administrators, Jesuit missionaries, local historians of the Japanese ceramic industry, and men of the Dutch East India Company. The women whose voices, lives, and actions were presented in these texts lived during a time when Joseon Korea was undergoing substantial social, political, and cultural changes. Their works described women-s capacity to transform, in ways large and sm
