Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 1, 2026
TAPE: A Biodegradable Hemostatic Glue Inspired by a Ubiquitous Compound in Plants for Surgical Application
Published on: June 8, 2016
Suturing the Nation in South Korean Historical Television Medical Dramas
1Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, 31 Nanyang Link, WKWSCI Building, Singapore, 637718, Singapore. kkliew@ntu.edu.sg.
Abstract:
Using the 2000-2010 South Korean historical medical dramas Heo Jun (The Way of Medicine), Dae Jang Geum (Jewel in the Palace), and Jejoongwon (The Hospital) as case studies, this article examines televisual reimaginations of Korean medical modernity as (re)interpretative popular culture texts. Particularly in the areas of the anatomical sciences and surgery, modern medicine's emancipatory potentials in these productions are set semi-fictitiously in pre-modern Joseon historical contexts. Dramaturgically challenging entrenched social hierarchies and ossified cultural taboos of Institutionalized Confucianism, these dramas' progressive physician-protagonists emphasize the universality and impartiality of medical knowledge in what is herein termed as Generative Confucianism.
Related Concept Videos
01:22Sutures of the Skull
Sutures are immobile joints between adjacent bones of the skull. The narrow gap between the bones is filled with dense, fibrous connective tissue that unites the bones. The long sutures located between the skull bones are not straight but instead follow irregular, tightly twisting paths. These twisting lines tightly...
01:30Psychosurgery
Historical Development of Psychosurgery
In the 1930s, Portuguese neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz introduced a surgical procedure designed...