초록/요약

The history of Korean science in the pre-modern era matured greatly for the past four years. It deals with its modernist bias and “problem of China” up front, while venturing out to find new sources of inspiration in adjacent fields. The modernist bias that singles out what resembles modern science from the knowledge practice that had different intellectual questions and aims has been criticized. Also, the “problem of China,” the difficulty of finding what distinguished Korean from Chinese knowledge practice, bothered researchers since Korean science often just looked a poor and delayed derivative of Chinese one. In addressing these problems, the works in the past four years show rather a valiant attitude. They mostly turned to discuss the strange science of the premodern era “on their own terms,” while embracing the peripheral strategies of utilizing Chinese sources as a valid way of pursuing their own intellectual and social agenda. The monograph series “Science and Civilization in Korea” enriches these endeavors by combining archeological and anthropological understandings with their concerns about materials and everyday lives. History of technology engaging with history of art and craft shares those concerns too. Upon the acute awareness about how non-human actors like a virus could shape history, the history of Korean science which came to embrace its strange peripheral endeavors may make a new turn to this history of matters and everyday practice of science and technology.