Legal History Workshop with Jungwon Kim: “Who Triggered My Death?: Crime and Suicide in Early Modern Korea”

The Columbia Legal History Workshop will meet on February 8th at 4:20 – 6:00pm EST in Jerome Greene hall room 701 (Case Lounge). We will be in conversation with Jungwon Kim (Columbia University) , who will present her paper titled ” Who Triggered My Death?: Crime and Suicide in Early Modern Korea” with comments by  Pablo Piccato.

Preface:

   Jungwon Kim, Columbia University Abstract: Throughout Chosŏn Korea (1392-1910), the act of suicide, which was seen as an inhumane action of the gravest unfiliality to one’s parents, was often justified or even glorified if proven to have been committed for the sake of upholding the Confucian virtues. Debates over the distinction between killing oneself due to vile, uncontrollable anger and doing so due to the unbearable dishonor of injustice therefore occupied the core of court discussions and literati writings. In the meantime, Chosŏn law proscribed suicide in general and required that it be investigatedboth through exhaustive postmortems and through a series of testimonies conducted by the local magistrate. In determining the specific circumstances that had led to the selfinflicted violence, the Chosŏn court identified and punished the other person(s) who had driven the deceased person to the state of committing suicide out of a fearful, humiliated, threatened, or aggrieved heart. Moreover, the court was keen to delineate the judicial line between “the accused” and “the principal offender” in determining punishment, carefully using the term “the accused” in legal reports under its statute on “my triggering [some]one’s death”—a statute unique to Chosŏn Korea that applied the Chinese Ming dynasty’s law concerning “coercion to cause others to die.” Centering on the statute on “my triggering [some]one’s death,” this paper delves into the legal implications of applying this Chosŏn-specific statute to self-inflicted violence and the historical and legal contexts in which it was generated in eighteenth-century Korea

If you plan to attend, please RSVP to Bree Adesanya at aadesanya@law.columbia.edu and the paper will be circulated to you.