Heonik Kwon Boeken

Focusing on the collective memory of the Vietnam War, this book delves into how popular culture interprets and represents the haunting presence of war ghosts. It examines the interplay between history and imagination, revealing how these spectral figures shape our understanding of trauma and loss associated with the conflict. Through various narratives, the book highlights the enduring impact of the Vietnam War on collective consciousness and the ways in which it continues to resonate in contemporary culture.

Spirit Power explores the manifestation of the American Century in Korean history with a focus on religious culture. It looks back on the encounter with American missionary power from the late nineteenth century, and the long political struggles against the country's indigenous popular religious heritage during the colonial and postcolonial eras. The book brings an anthropology of religion into the field of Cold War history. In particular, it investigates how Korea's shamanism has assimilated symbolic properties of American power into its realm of ritual efficacy in the form of the spirit of General Douglas MacArthur. The book considers this process in dialog with the work of Yim Suk-jay, a prominent Korean anthropologist who saw that a radically cosmopolitan and democratic world vision is embedded in Korea's enduring shamanism tradition.