In the last fifty years, Korea has transformed itself from an agrarian, Confucian-based culture into a global and technological powerhouse, and one of the most important political and economic forces in the world. Based on previous research and face-to-face interviews, the book shows how contemporary Koreans negotiate traditional Confucian values and Western capitalistic values in their everyday encounters - particularly in business and professional contexts. This is a useful companion book for courses in international business, intercultural communication, and Asian studies.

What it means to be a self - and a self communicating and being in a particular culture - are key issues interwoven throughout Min-Sun Kim?s impressive text, Non-Western Perspectives on Human Communication. Going beyond cultural descriptions or instructions on adapting to specific cultures, the author interrogates the very core assumptions underlying the study of human communication and challenges longstanding individualistic, Western models on which much intercultural research is based. Kim proposes a non-western way of conceptualizing identity, or the "self" - the cornerstone of cultural research -- illuminating how traditional western and non-western views can be blended into a broader, more realistic understanding of cultures and communication. Grounding her work in a thorough knowledge of the literature, she challenges students and researchers alike to reexamine their approach to intercultural study.

• Interrogates embedded assumptions about the traditional [Western] study of human communication with stunning, thought-provoking insight

• Illuminates issues surrounding culture and identity formation and challenges the reader to examine not only the study of human communication, but its engagement in everyday life
• Informs complex academic theory with stellar writing, poignant examples, and careful analysis

• Invites scholars and students to explore and integrate a long overdue multicultural perspective on human communication.

Min-Sun Kim (Ph.D., Michigan State University) is Professor in the Department of Speech at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Her research focus is the role of cognition in conversational styles among people of different cultural orientations. She is currently serving as an Associate Editor for Communication Reports and also as a reviewer for various communication journals.

What it means to be a self - and a self communicating and being in a particular culture - are key issues interwoven throughout Min-Sun Kim?s impressive text, Non-Western Perspectives on Human Communication. Going beyond cultural descriptions or instructions on adapting to specific cultures, the author interrogates the very core assumptions underlying the study of human communication and challenges longstanding individualistic, Western models on which much intercultural research is based. Kim proposes a non-western way of conceptualizing identity, or the "self" - the cornerstone of cultural research -- illuminating how traditional western and non-western views can be blended into a broader, more realistic understanding of cultures and communication. Grounding her work in a thorough knowledge of the literature, she challenges students and researchers alike to reexamine their approach to intercultural study.

• Interrogates embedded assumptions about the traditional [Western] study of human communication with stunning, thought-provoking insight

• Illuminates issues surrounding culture and identity formation and challenges the reader to examine not only the study of human communication, but its engagement in everyday life
• Informs complex academic theory with stellar writing, poignant examples, and careful analysis

• Invites scholars and students to explore and integrate a long overdue multicultural perspective on human communication.

Min-Sun Kim (Ph.D., Michigan State University) is Professor in the Department of Speech at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Her research focus is the role of cognition in conversational styles among people of different cultural orientations. She is currently serving as an Associate Editor for Communication Reports and also as a reviewer for various communication journals.

Death and the activities and beliefs surrounding it can teach us much about the ideals and cultures of the living. While biologically death is an end to physical life, this break is not quite so apparent in its mental and spiritual aspects. Indeed, the influence of the dead over the living is sometimes much greater than before death. This volume takes a multidisciplinary approach in an effort to provide a fuller understanding of both historic and contemporary practices linked with death in Korea. Contributors from Korea and the West incorporate the approaches of archaeology, history, literature, religion, and anthropology in addressing a number of topics organized around issues of the body, disposal of remains, ancestor worship and rites, and the afterlife. The first two chapters explore the ways in which bodies of the dying and the dead were dealt with from the Greater Silla Kingdom (668–935) to the mid-twentieth century. Grave construction and goods, cemeteries, and memorial monuments in the Koryo (918–1392) and the twentieth century are then discussed, followed by a consideration of ancestral rites and worship, which have formed an inseparable part of Korean mortuary customs since premodern times. Chapters address the need to appease the dead both in shamanic and Confucians contexts. The final section of the book examines the treatment of the dead and how the state of death has been perceived. Ghost stories provide important insight into how death was interpreted by common people in the Koryo and Choson (1392–1910) while nonconformist narratives of death such as the seventeenth-century romantic novel Kuunmong point to a clear conflict between Buddhist thought and practice and official Neo-Confucian doctrine. Keeping with unendorsed views on death, the final chapter explores how death and the afterlife were understood by early Korean Catholics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Death, Mourning, and the Afterlife in Korea fills a significant gap in studies on Korean society and culture as well as on East Asian mortuary practices. By approaching its topic from a variety of disciplines and extending its historical reach to cover both premodern and modern Korea, it is an important resource for scholars and students in a variety of fields.