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What to Read and Hear...

By Indiana University Faculty (and Friends)

Laying Claim to the Memory of May: A Look Back at the 1980 Kwangju Uprising
Linda S. Lewis
(University of Hawai'i Press, 2002)

Linda Lewis, Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the East Asian Studies Program at Wittenberg University, may be remembered best from the semester she taught at Indiana University as a visiting professor. Recently, her book Laying Claim to the Memory of May: A Look Back at the 1980 Kwangju Uprising, which is part of the Hawai'i series on Korea, has hit the shelves, forcing us to reconsider the ramifications of what occurred during those ten days in May more than twenty years ago.

The Kwangju Uprising -- "Korea's Tiananmen" -- is one of the most important political events in late twentieth-century Korean history. What began as a peaceful demonstration against the imposition of military rule in the southwestern city of Kwangju in May 1980 turned into a bloody people's revolt. In the two decades since, memories of the Kwangju Uprising have lived on, assuming symbolic importance in the Korean democracy movement, fueling the rise in anti-American sentiment in South Korea, and shaping the nation's transition to a civil society. Nonetheless, it remains a contested event, the subject still of controversy, confusion, international debate, and competing claims.

As one of the few Western eyewitnesses to the uprising, Linda Lewis is uniquely positioned to write about the event. In this innovative work on commemoration politics, social representation, and memory, Lewis draws on her fieldwork notes from May 1980, writings from the 1980s, and ethnographic research she conducted in the late 1990s on the memorialization of Kwangju and its relationship to changes in the national political culture. The chronological organization of the text is crisscrossed throughout with commentary that provocatively disrupts the narrative flow and engages the reader in the reflexive process of remembering Kwangju over two decades. Highly original in its method and approach, Laying Claim to the Memory of May situates this seminal event in a broad historical and scholarly context. The result is not only the definitive history of the Kwangju Uprising, but also a sweeping overview of Korean studies during the last few decades. Compiled by Susan Furukawa

 

One World, Many Voices, Vols. I and II
The Indiana University International Vocal Ensemble, Mary Goetze, Director
(May 2002)

Mary Goetze of the Indiana University School of Music, has two new CDs out that include some music from East Asia. These two CDs feature music from 19 countries, geographic regions, or ethnic groups. The group which performs them, the International Vocal Ensemble at Indiana University, specializes in songs from around the world and is comprised of students from many different countries. The songs on the CDs are performed in their original languages. The CD liner notes state that "As a means of building bridges and understanding culture through music, the International Vocal Ensemble recreates music from outside the western art tradition." Wherever possible, native informants are used to teach the performers proper pronunciation of the lyrics, the vocal style of the culture in question, and the cultural context of the song. The arrangements are remarkable in their attention to detail and adherence to the musical style of the culture.

Volume I has a total of 27 tracks from 10 countries, and Volume II has 24 tracks from 12 regions. East Asia is represented with one song from Japan in Volume I, while Volume II features two works each from China and Japan. One of the highlights of Volume I is the "Balinese Kecak: Excerpts from a Ramayana Monkey Chant." The Ensemble gives a remarkable performance of this skillful arrangement of the well-known Balinese ritual in which voices imitate the sounds of gamelan instruments. Molly Adkins Jeon, a Japanese minyo (folk song) singer trained in Japan, demonstrates her breathtaking skill as the soloist on "Kokiriko-bushi" in Volume II. These CDs could have many applications, from an elementary classroom to an international festival to just pure listening enjoyment. They are available through the Ensemble's website at www.indiana.edu/~ive

Goetze and Jay Fern are also developing an interactive CD-ROM about Japan, which will be available in early 2003. It is preceded by similar volumes on South Africa and Hungary, with volumes from Aotearoa/New Zealand and Azerbaijan underway. Miyako Furiya of Miyagi University is assisting with the Japan volume, which includes materials for the re-creation of traditional Japanese songs, games and dances, and an introduction to Japan. In the music section of the CD-ROM, the song text is pronounced and sung phrase by phrase, the instruments are demonstrated individually, and the dances are presented in isolation and in slow motion--all that is needed to re-create the songs. In the culture section there is information on song origins, geography and traditions, as well as a language section with some simple phrases in Japanese. Reviewed by Anne Prescott

 

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