Abstract
Red-crowned white cranes, large migratorybirds symbolizing longevity, fidelity, and independence from power across EastAsian cultures, came to live in scholar-official households in late Chosŏn.With the residency of this elegant bird in scholarly households around themid-eighteenth century, a new knowledge practice that took serious interest inthings like cranes emerged. This paper illuminates the roles of these highlycross-cultured things in late-Chosŏn knowledge transformation, echoing materialturns in various disciplines. Necessitating knowledge to properly possess andaccompany them, cranes led to a new scholarly attachment to things. It openedup an unprecedented intellectual attitude that valued curiosity, taste, andfacts concerning things and emphasized usefulness of that newly obtainedthing-knowledge. Curiosity, taste, facts, and the usefulness of knowledgeobtained new meanings in other parts of the world that experienced similartransitions in knowledge practice by and towards things. While delineating theroles of cranes specifically in late-Chosŏn's transformation through theimprints that they left in scholarly acts and works, this paper proposes a newway to connect knowledge transformations in different parts of the globe, viathese newly migrating things, moving away from the narrative that requires anorigin and transfers.
Keywords: Red-crowned white cranes ChosŏnKorea Sirhak practical studies “Material turns” diffusionism
