ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: SCHOOL, STATE, AND NATION: EDUCATIONAL RHETORICS AT A KOREAN WOMEN’S COLLEGE DURING AND AFTER JAPANESE COLONIZATION, 1918–1965 Nathan Wil Tillman, Doctor of Philosophy, 2019 Dissertation directed by: Professor Jessica Enoch Professor Vessela Valiavitcharska “School, State, and Nation” examines how the leaders and students of Ewha College, founded by American missionaries in 1910 as Korea’s first college for women, used rhetorical strategies to negotiate Japanese colonial power and Korean patriarchal objectives as they pursued their educational goals during and after the Japanese colonial period (1918–1965). This project draws on a range of Korean- and English-language primary sources, including letters, reports, photographs, articles, emblems, and autobiographies, especially the work of Ewha’s last American president Alice Appenzeller (in office 1922–1939) and first Korean president Kim Hwallan (1939–1961). Analyzing these sources, I show how Ewha became a contested site for the competing agendas of the Japanese colonial state, Korean nationalists, and the school community. I argue that Appenzeller, Kim, and Ewha women generally crafted what I call “educational rhetorics,” or the rhetorical strategies leveraged to constantly re/define their school’s relationship with the Japanese state and Korean nation during and after the colonial period. I identify performance, debates about education’s utility, and confession as three categories of these educational rhetorics. “School, State, and Nation” analyzes these educational rhetorics and argues that Ewha women leveraged them during the colonial period 1) to cooperate with the Japanese state while resisting its assimilating and imperializing goals, and 2) to signal their support for Korea’s independence and welfare while insisting on women’s equality in this nationalist project, and, after Korea’s liberation in 1945, 3) to mitigate Korean criticisms of Kim’s wartime collaboration with Japan. Anglophone rhetoric scholars have increasingly diversified our understanding of how rhetoric works in environments outside the US and Europe, examined the role of schools in identify formation and promoting/stifling political activism, and studied the rhetorical power of performance, education, and confession to dis/empower marginalized groups and pursue social reform. “School, State, and Nation” builds on and complicates this rhetorical scholarship by extending it into post/colonial Korea, where the complex environment complicates national and cultural categories of rhetoric, diversifies our understanding of the rhetorical role of women’s colleges in colonial and postcolonial environments, and problematizes definitions of patriotism and collaboration. SCHOOL, STATE, AND NATION: EDUCATIONAL RHETORICS AT A KOREAN WOMEN’S COLLEGE DURING AND AFTER JAPANESE COLONIZATION, 1918–1965 by Nathan Wil Tillman Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2019 Advisory Committee: Professor Jessica Enoch, Co-chair Professor Vessela Valiavitcharska, Co-chair Professor Scott Wible Professor Satoru Hashimoto Professor Damien Smith Pfister © Copyright by Nathan Wil Tillman 2019 Acknowledgments I finished this project only with the generosity and encouragement of many people. It was Jessica Enoch who gave me the courage to take on the project in the first place. She mentored me through every stage of the writing, reading countless drafts and always offering constructive, positive feedback. Her incredible generosity and vision of what rhetorical scholarship can be and do have been transformational for me. Similarly, I am unable to adequately thank Vessela Valiavitcharska, without whose kindness and wisdom I would literally not have made it through my doctoral studies. She mentored me through five years of professional and personal trials, and she has deepened and broadened my scholarship both with her own example and with her insightful guidance. I am deeply grateful to Satoru Hashimoto for his confidence in me to do Korean scholarship and his mentorship along the rocky path of my dissertation. He has been an invaluable resource and guide, and this project never would have gotten off the ground without him. Chanon Adsanatham provided me with kindness and guidance when I badly needed them, helping me frame the project and shape chapters. His advice and example of doing non-Western rhetorical scholarship has been fundamental for shaping my own thinking. Early in my doctoral studies, Scott Wible set an example for me of what positive, constructive teaching and writing instruction look like, and I’ve drawn on my experience in his Approaches to College Composition course ever since. He generously came to my rescue in the last stages of the dissertation, and I have greatly benefitted from his advice and expertise in positioning my work within multilingual rhetorical studies. Damien Pfister graciously agreed to read my work, and his insight about Kim Hwallan’s ii educational context will undoubtedly open new avenues of research. Elizabeth Ellis Miller and Ruth Osorio have both been amazing, encouraging me at each stage and sharing their work as models for me as I mastered each genre of this project from prospectus to conclusion. Many thanks to my fellow graduate students here at UMD, including my writing group members Danielle Griffin, Nabila Hijazi, and Katie Bramlett. I am grateful to them for reading early (and extremely rough) chapter and conference drafts and for offering insights and kindness along the way. I have no words to express the valuable role played by my dear friends, comrades-in-arms, and officemates Chen Edrei and Manon Soulet. Their compassion, conversations, and companionship during dark times – not to mention baking, chocolate, and lots of laughter – provided the healing balm that I needed to carry on each day for this five- year journey. Thanks are due as well to my extended UMD Comparative Literature family – to Sheila Jelen, for the care she offered as I struggled professionally and personally; to Jerry Passannante, for his patient support as I flip-flopped multiple times about my topic; to Ines Rivera and Nataliya Pratsovyta, for offering friendship and giving me hope through their own excellent examples; and to all my wonderful Comp Lit friends. Beyond UMD, I owe this project to the aid of scholars who helped me locate sources in Korea and provided valuable advice. 손현지 Son Hyunji at the Ewha Archives located Alice Appenzeller’s letters for me, shared and helped me to obtain permission to use many of the photographs included in this text, and provided kind and prompt help over the past three years. 이혜지 Yi Hye-ji at Ewha University Press helped me secure permission to use the cover image of Kim Hwallan’s 1965 iii autobiography. 한민섭 Han Minsub at the Korea University Library Old and Rare Books and Special Collections graciously scanned and shared the original text of Kim’s 1942 essay, saving me a last-minute trip to Korea. 최혜월 Choi Hyaeweol has aided me invaluably with her brilliant scholarship, her translations of numerous primary sources (New Women), and by advising me both in person and via email about locating Korean periodicals and other sources. 김은경 Eunkyung Kim generously helped me track down one of Kim’s articles. 최기숙 Choi Gisuk offered valuable advice and encouragement during meetings in the US and in Seoul over a delicious cup of tea. I have saved the most important thanks for last. My wife 양미란 Miran Yang has sacrificed everything – from country to career – these past five years to support and help me during my doctoral studies. She offered endless insight as we discussed the many fascinating puzzles of Ewha women’s post/colonial experience, informed me about invaluable study tools (including Naver dictionary), served as a generous Korean language advisor, helped me prepare PowerPoints for conferences, and contributed to just about every part of the project. But her sacrifice, love, and patience have been most precious of all – she really deserves a doctoral degree of her own. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………….....ii List of Figures…………………………………………………………………...……vi Transcription and Transliteration Notes……………………………………...………vi Introduction: Educational Rhetorics, Ewha College, and Occupied Korea…...………1 Chapter 1: Performative Educational Rhetorics at Ewha College During Alice Appenzeller’s Presidency, 1925–1940…………………………………………….…36 Chapter 2: Educational Rhetorics of Utility: Kim Hwallan’s Arguments for Women’s Education and Nation, 1918–1942………………………………………………….104 Chapter 3: Confession as Educational Rhetoric in Kim Hwallan’s Autobiographies, 1964–1965…………………………………………………………………………..176 Conclusion: Collaborators, Resisters, and Schools…………………………………249 Works Cited…………………………………………...……………………………267 v List of Figures Figure 1: Kim Hwallan’s statue defaced ……….……………………………...……..1 Figure 2: Ewha students pull down Kim’s statue………………………………..……1 Figure 3: Popular Features of May Day…………………………………...…………60 Figure 4: Ewha College 1930 school seal……………………………….…...………73 Figure 5: 일월오봉도 “Sun, Moon, Five Peak Painting” …………..………………74 Figure 6: Ewha’s 1930 and 1939 school seals…………….…………………………85 Figure 7: Ewha College faculty, November 5, 1940………………...………………95 Figure 8: A farewell bow to Western teachers……………...………………………..95 Figure 9: An advertisement for Sin Yeoja in May 1920………………..…..………134 Figure