Sacred Spaces and Early Modern Subjecthood in Chosŏn Korea

This paper is about the making of a Confucian exemplar in nineteenth-century Korea.  In the aftermath of the Imjin war (1592-1598), the state honored many heroic individuals by funding and encouraging commemorative practices such as the construction of shrines and the publication of encomia.  Commemoration reaffirmed the state and its actions in the war; validating meritorious subjects implicitly confirmed the moral worthiness of the state that had inspired such glorious devotion.
By examining the conflicted commemoration of the monk-warrior, Yujŏng (惟政 1544-1610), we can trace his transfiguration from a Buddhist monk to a state exemplar whose virtues valorized Chosŏn (1392-1910) Confucian state ideology. Given the history of hostility in the Yi dynasty (1392-1910) towards Buddhism, Yujŏng’s religious allegiances fit poorly with the image of Chosŏn exemplarity. The friction produced by making Yujŏng into a Confucian worthy reveals conflicting imperatives: first, an inclusive desire on the part of the state and its actors to reconcile the war through the promotion of heroes and second, the desire to endorse a particular image of ideal subjecthood. 
Promoting Yujŏng as an exemplar contributed to an inspiring narrative of the Imjin war where even subjects who were normally not expected to serve the state rose above their social limitations. After all, Buddhist monks were not permitted to serve in the army or as officials; for Chosŏn officials, professing Buddhist beliefs was grounds for impeachment.  So how could a man who had clearly rejected mainstream paths of service to the state, who had never been a career official, who chose Buddhism ‘over’ Confucianism, become part of a Chosŏn pantheon of moral exemplars?  My paper suggests that the commemoration of marginal subjects expanded the duties and obligations that the state expected of its people while paradoxically seeking to reaffirm pre-existing social division