"Fracturing the Space of the Real": Deriving a Korean Queer Theory from the Shamanic Feminist Poetics of Kim Hyesoon
Amber Lee
Chapman University Digital Commons May 1, 2026 DOI: 10.36837/chapman.000744 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Shamanism |
| Key points | Argues that Kim Hyesoon's shamanic feminist poetics and her reading of 'Abandoned Princess Baridegi' provide a counter-epistemological framework for Korean queer theory outside Western critical discourse. Through Butler's resignification and Muñoz's disidentification, the author proposes that Kim's transformed feminine yin creates a 'disidentificatory performance-space' ('hyonbin') for queer Korean worldmaking, and offers a model for other Indigenous scholars to theorize their own ritual and cosmological practices against imperial heteropatriarchy. |
Abstract
This thesis derives a Korean queer theory from the shamanic feminist poetics of Kim Hyesoon, arguing that her theorization of Korean indigenous spirituality [musok] and the shaman song "Abandoned Princess Baridegi" constitutes a counter-epistemological framework capable of articulating queer possibility outside the ideological constraints of Western critical discourse. Drawing on the three essays of Princess Abandoned, translated by Don Mee Choi, I read Kim's work through a methodology of resignification (Judith Butler) and disidentification (José Esteban Muñoz) to argue that her agentive resignification of femininity and yin theorizes a disidentificatory performance-space [hyonbin] where queer Korean subjects enact worldmaking and destabilize hegemony. My subsequent resignification of wonhan works alongside Kim’s transformed feminine yin to restore dynamic cosmological force to concepts calcified under patriarchal and colonial ideology. This project brings together critical theory, feminist poetry, historical and ethnographical texts, and translation theory to perform a deliberate severing of queer theory from white Western teleology and its replanting within a syncretic Korean cosmological framework. I propose a model for queer-of-color theorization through which scholars of other Indigenous cultures can theorize their own ritual, affective, or cosmological practices as strategies for working within and against imperial heteropatriarchy.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on shamanism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond | 2014 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Shamanism as the Original Neurotheology | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Cognitive Neuroscience, Shamanism and the Rock Art of Native California | 1998 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From Culture to Experience: Shamanism in the Pages of the Soviet Anti-Religious Press | 2020 | Historical analysis | |
| Anthropology, Shamanism, and Alternate Ways of Knowing–Being in the World: One Anthropologist's Journey of Discovery and Transformation | 2010 | Reflective essay or personal narrative |