Opening with a vignette from a newspaper, Cheguk sinmun, Sonja Kim’s Imperatives of Care takes up a female candidate for medical education at the close of the nineteenth century mobilizing her circumstances within a public forum. As reported, the female applicant receives a denial from authorities in charge of the Government Medical School, but the newspaper’s recounting of her ambitions praises the attempt, leaving space for further discussion (1). For Kim, this 1899 incident represents a small subset of a series of events within late Chosŏn-period Korea, offering a means of entry into a larger discussion. Not only were Koreans increasingly invested in questions of reform and modernity, broadly construed—indeed, the import of new technologies, ideas, and the corresponding role of print as a venue for their dissemination has informed a good deal of literature within Korean Studies—but also Korean women, specifically, played a prominent role in driving this activity. The perceived “special relationship” between arriving missionaries and the Koreans with whom they interacted therefore provides a personal dynamic to focus this set of questions, especially concerning emerging roles for women, whether in terms of domestic or professional opportunities.1

中文翻译：

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护理的必要性：韩国殖民时期的妇女与医学 作者：Sonja Kim

Sonja Kim 的《护理的必要性》以报纸的小插曲开篇，Cheguk sinmun，在 19 世纪末接受医学教育的女性候选人在公共论坛上动员她的情况。据报道，这位女性申请人收到了政府医学院主管部门的拒绝，但该报在讲述她的雄心壮志时赞扬了这一尝试，留有进一步讨论的空间 (1)。对金来说，这起 1899 年的事件代表了朝鲜时代晚期一系列事件的一小部分，提供了进入更大讨论的途径。韩国人不仅越来越多地投入到改革和现代性问题上，广泛地解释——实际上，引进新技术、思想、印刷品作为传播场所的相应作用为韩国研究中的大量文献提供了信息——但特别是韩国女性在推动这项活动中发挥了重要作用。因此，抵达传教士与他们交往的韩国人之间感知到的“特殊关系”提供了个人动力来关注这组问题，特别是关于女性的新兴角色，无论是家庭还是职业机会。 1