In his prize-winning essay, \u201cHwa-byung: The Han-Blessed Illness,\u201d Wooyoung Cho taps a global skill set to shed new light on how culture shapes definitions of mental illness. His paper is an outstanding example of student-driven inquiry. I had never heard of the Korean culture-bound mental illness called hwa-byung when Wooyoung proposed this project. But even if I had, I would\u2019ve had no idea where to find narratives about hwa-byung written by young men, let alone be able to translate them from Korean. (Are you curious yet?)<\/p>\n
In his research, Wooyoung learned that scholarly studies of hwa-byung have focused on middle-aged women and interpreted their symptoms as reflections of Korea\u2019s patriarchal social structure. When he discovered that today more young men are being diagnosed with hwa-byung, he wanted to understand the social causes of their distress. One way he gathered evidence was by searching a Korean online forum and reading posts by young men about their hwa-byung experiences.<\/p>\n
When students in Marisa Milanese\u2019s \u201cGlobal Documentary\u201d class read a draft of Wooyoung\u2019s essay in a cross-section peer review exercise, they were understandably skeptical about his methodology. They asked for \u201ca clearer understanding of why analyzing narratives is a credible method to gain insight into this illness.\u201d Wooyoung responded with a revision that provided the theoretical framework necessary to explain the kind of authority those anonymous online posts have in the context of his project. He was wise to listen carefully to his readers. Marisa\u2019s students pinpointed what readers from outside our class\u2014including the WR<\/em> editorial board\u2014would need to be persuaded by his argument.<\/p>\n Wooyoung\u2019s fascinating essay provides one small example of what international students contribute to a Boston University education. It was a delight to teach him and to learn from him.<\/p>\n \u2014SARAH MADSEN HARDY<\/strong> In his prize-winning essay, \u201cHwa-byung: The Han-Blessed Illness,\u201d Wooyoung Cho taps a global skill set to shed new light on how culture shapes definitions of mental illness. His paper is an outstanding example of student-driven inquiry. I had never heard of the Korean culture-bound mental illness called hwa-byung when Wooyoung proposed this project. But even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4801,"featured_media":0,"parent":12091,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4801"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12120"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12224,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12120\/revisions\/12224"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWR 150: Representing Illness<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"