Songs of Seoul: An Ethnography of Voice and Voicing in Christian South Korea

by Nicholas Harkness

Songs of Seoul is an ethnographic study of voice in South Korea, where the performance of Western opera, art songs, and choral music is an overwhelmingly Evangelical Christian enterprise. Drawing on fieldwork in churches, concert halls, and schools of music, Harkness argues that the European-style classical voice has become a specifically Christian emblem of South Korean prosperity. By cultivating certain qualities of voice and suppressing others, Korean Christians strive to personally embody the social transformations promised by their from superstition to enlightenment; from dictatorship to democracy; from sickness to health; from poverty to wealth; from dirtiness to cleanliness; from sadness to joy; from suffering to grace. Tackling the problematic of voice in anthropology and across a number of disciplines, Songs of Seoul develops an innovative semiotic approach to connecting the materiality of body and sound, the social life of speech and song, and the cultural voicing of perspective and personhood.

Genres: Anthropology

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[versarbre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic and first-rate ethnography! My main complaint is that the author treats "Christian Korean Culture" as a sort of self-contained composite. Although he does mention in passing about certain ruptures, we learn very little how other registers of voice intersect with this particular classical voicing. How about K-pop? And what about sangak singers in their everyday interactions with family members? What voice registers would they use or shift in between? I'd hope to read a chapter or a separate paper on voicing and the family dynamics of these Christian sangak singers. Nonetheless, I love this ethnography because it shows the use of semiotic analyses. For this particular subject of voice and voicing, and this level of socio-aesthetic production, I wondered whether other analytic apparatus could do the same or a better job? Perhaps no? This is a case about how a specific method actually fits its particular materials and objects of study! And it makes you want to think about voicing cultural issues everywhere with this method!

[Mike Mena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic book that focuses on the Peircian semiotic concept ICONICITY. What is impressive is that Harkness manages to find an incredibly interesting topic, the human voice, and show how various scales align or diagram with one another while also remaining legible to persons that are not specialists in semiotics. Great job. Will also be of interest to those who focus on the body, christianity, and Korea in general.