What am I reading in ScholarWorks? July 2023

Jessica Ryan, Scholarly Communications Librarian, highlights an item in ScholarWorks each month.

This month’s selection is “Fields of Revision: Adaptations of Wren’s Elegy by Mo Yun-suk and Kim Ki-young,” co-authored by Irhe Sohn, Smith College Professor of East Asian Languages & Cultures, and Ki-In Chong, Seoul National University of Science and Technology.

I love an examination of the words we use to describe a process: adaptation, revision, textual migration, a difference of version or vision, that ‘alters the spirit.’ By starting with sundry terms, Professor of East Asian Languages & Cultures, Sohn’s article, brings us closer to understanding the complexity of what is happening when a text is adapted.

For this month’s What Am I Reading in ScholarWorks? selection, let’s explore the multifaceted implications, overlaps, and conversations between multiple adaptations or revisions of a text that belie the simplicity of any single-word concept. Sohn and co-author Ki-In Chong surface the interrogative and transformative process, through what they call a field of revision, that occurs over time. They use a single text as a point of departure, forcing the reader to slough off one’s attachment to a linear and static view of the process of adaptation and revision. As well, if like me, you did not know of the Korean poet, Mo Yun-suk, you are in for a double treat in this excellent essay, “Fields of Revision: Adaptations of Wren’s Elegy by Mo Yun-suk and Kim Ki-young” co-authored by Irhe Sohn and Ki-In Chong. Enjoy!

To read this work in Smith ScholarWorks, visit: https://scholarworks.smith.edu/eas_facpubs/14/

What is ScholarWorks?

Smith ScholarWorks is Smith’s institutional repository of digital scholarship and research materials created and curated by faculty, students, and staff at Smith College. Browse by collections, disciplines, and authors.