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Who was William E. Griffis?

“To be lifted to the summit of the World Trade Center is to be lifted out of the city’s grasp. […] An Icarus flying above these waters, he can ignore the devices of Daedalus in mobile and endless labyrinths far below. His elevation transfigures him into a voyeur. It puts him at a distance.” (de Certeau, Giard, & Mayol 92)

Perhaps physical distance allowed Griffis, too, the remove of a flying Icarus and the elevation of a spectator up in the heights of a skyscraper. An American Orientalist, prolific author of East Asian ethnographies and histories, and pioneering Korea scholar of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, William Elliot Griffis (1843-1928) published a plethora of foundational texts in Korean studies including Corea: The Hermit Nation, without having physically travelled to the “hermit nation” itself. It was not until 1927, a year before his death, that Griffis was able to set foot in Chemulpo.

 

Rutgers University Libraries

Born in Philadelphia, Griffis studied at Rutgers University, where he built acquaintances with some of the first Japanese students to study in the United States. After graduation, Griffis taught in Japan (in Echizen, Tokyo, and other regions) for several years. After returning to the U.S. in 1874, Griffis published an extensive collection of books on Japan, and pursued his ambition to become one of the most influential Orientalists in the western world. (William Elliot Griffis Collection). In 1882, Griffis published Corea: The Hermit Nation. From 1874 to his death in 1928, he also compiled an exhaustive collection of Korea-related materials, ranging from photographs to pamphlets and stories.

Griffis's Virtual Experience of Korea: A Map

First-person space

Second-person space

Third-person space

How did Griffis understand Korea without having travelled it physically?

Griffis’s virtual experience of Korea prior to this visit raises several questions significant to the understanding of his legacies: How was Korea, the remote and inaccessible “hermit nation,” reproduced in Griffis’s scholarly imagination? What were the means by which Griffis constructed an understanding of Korea, and what are the consequences of this remove between Griffis and Korea?

In this project, I propose a conceptual map that attempts to identify three different kinds of space through which Griffis virtually experienced Korea: I analyze Griffis’s conceptualization of Korea as a third-person space, in which he explored Korea through the existing literature, as a second-person space, in which he participated in this discourse via his correspondences with those in Korea, and as a first-person space, in which he interpreted Korea through his own scholarly work and personal writings.

I furthermore propose that this framework may be a helpful tool in identifying the different voices present in Griffis’s work, i.e. the political, religious, and cultural perspectives that influenced the information acquired or produced by Griffis. In formulating and examining these categories, I used the materials in the William Elliot Griffis Collection at Rutgers University, along with Corea: The Hermit Nation. While I attempt to identify the different kinds of space constructed by Griffis, an individual scholar, the broader inquiry of this project regards the manner in which one understands, imagines, or secondhandedly experiences a space that is removed from one’s physical location.

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