@article{ART003313496},
author={Ga-In Son},
title={Kim Dong-ri’s Munyedo (1936) and the ‘Surviving Shaman’ - Based on Georges Didi-Huberman’s The Surviving Image -},
journal={Journal of Humanities},
issn={1598-8457},
year={2026},
number={100},
pages={599-629}
TY - JOUR
AU - Ga-In Son
TI - Kim Dong-ri’s Munyedo (1936) and the ‘Surviving Shaman’ - Based on Georges Didi-Huberman’s The Surviving Image -
JO - Journal of Humanities
PY - 2026
VL - null
IS - 100
PB - Institute for Humanities
SP - 599
EP - 629
SN - 1598-8457
AB - The awarding of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature to Han Kang, whose literary works are often described as taking the form of shamanistic purification rituals, invites a reconsideration of Kim Dong-ri’s literature as a pioneering foundation of the shamanistic literary tradition that has persisted in Korean literature since the ‘modern’ period.
Based on Yin and Yang theory and Western philosophies of life, Kim established his own concept, the “philosophy of rhythm.” The alternation of yin and yang, the positives and the negatives―comparable to the movements of breathing or the pulse―constitutes sin (神, cosmic balance). Kim insisted that when a person fully accepts this rhythm, it can be called sinmyeong (神 明, insight into the cosmic balance), or the realization of divine order. This concept can be aligned with the Dionysian pathos in Nietzsche’s philosophy.
Georges Didi-Huberman’s The Surviving Image offers an effective theoretical framework for analyzing Kim’s representative novel Munyeodo (The Painting of a Shaman, 1936). Didi-Huberman re-examined Aby Warburg who devoted his whole life to tracing the “survival” of pathos in Renaissance art.
Warburg identified the figure of the “nymph”―women dancing in Dionysian ceremonies―as a visual embodiment of the Pathosformel (pathos formula).
Similarly, Kim Dong-ri’s Munyeodo presents the image of a shaman as a way to capture sinmyeong. A girl named Nang-i, who inherited the blood of both a shaman and a painter, is uniquely capable of capturing sinmyeong and giving it form. As Nang-i does within the narrative, Kim himself also created the image of the “girl” as his own version of the “nymph.” Kim once predicted that his effort to transmit sinmyeong would be recognized as a meaningful idea at least a hundred years later. The shaman who survived through Munyeodo and Kim’s novels seems to have reappeared, approximately a century later, in the literature of Han Kang.
KW - Kim Dong-ri;Munyeodo;Shamanism;Sinmyeong;Didi-Huberman;Survival;the Pathosformel;Nietzsche;Han Kang
DO -
UR -
ER -
Ga-In Son. (2026). Kim Dong-ri’s Munyedo (1936) and the ‘Surviving Shaman’ - Based on Georges Didi-Huberman’s The Surviving Image -. Journal of Humanities, 100, 599-629.
Ga-In Son. 2026, "Kim Dong-ri’s Munyedo (1936) and the ‘Surviving Shaman’ - Based on Georges Didi-Huberman’s The Surviving Image -", Journal of Humanities, no.100, pp.599-629.
Ga-In Son "Kim Dong-ri’s Munyedo (1936) and the ‘Surviving Shaman’ - Based on Georges Didi-Huberman’s The Surviving Image -" Journal of Humanities 100 pp.599-629 (2026) : 599.
Ga-In Son. Kim Dong-ri’s Munyedo (1936) and the ‘Surviving Shaman’ - Based on Georges Didi-Huberman’s The Surviving Image -. 2026; 100 : 599-629.
Ga-In Son. "Kim Dong-ri’s Munyedo (1936) and the ‘Surviving Shaman’ - Based on Georges Didi-Huberman’s The Surviving Image -" Journal of Humanities no.100(2026) : 599-629.
Ga-In Son. Kim Dong-ri’s Munyedo (1936) and the ‘Surviving Shaman’ - Based on Georges Didi-Huberman’s The Surviving Image -. Journal of Humanities, 100, 599-629.
Ga-In Son. Kim Dong-ri’s Munyedo (1936) and the ‘Surviving Shaman’ - Based on Georges Didi-Huberman’s The Surviving Image -. Journal of Humanities. 2026; 100 599-629.
Ga-In Son. Kim Dong-ri’s Munyedo (1936) and the ‘Surviving Shaman’ - Based on Georges Didi-Huberman’s The Surviving Image -. 2026; 100 : 599-629.
Ga-In Son. "Kim Dong-ri’s Munyedo (1936) and the ‘Surviving Shaman’ - Based on Georges Didi-Huberman’s The Surviving Image -" Journal of Humanities no.100(2026) : 599-629.
