CONGRATULATIONS

Successful Dissertation Defense in Project B02 of CRC 1475

On June, 24, Elsa Küppers successfully defended her dissertation, "Metaphor and the Conception of Self and World in Chosŏn Korean Ego-Documents". The work was completed in East Asian Studies, in CRC 1475's subproject B02, supervised by Prof. Dr. Marion Eggert. The second supervisor was Prof. Dr. Martin Schwermann.

The dissertation explores how people in premodern Korea (16th–18th centuries) understood themselves and the world around them—and how they put that understanding into words. Küppers examined personal writings such as travel accounts, essays on memorable places, and dream records, in which authors describe extraordinary experiences, like moments of awe inspired by a landscape.

The study shows that such experiences were often described using images of ascent, expansion, or merging—imagery that did not originate in the Confucian thought dominant at the time, yet was used to express something fully compatible with it: the feeling of momentarily rising above the everyday.

The dissertation thus sheds new light on how people in the premodern era gave language to their inner experience, while also contributing fresh perspectives to the broader study of metaphor as a tool of thought.

CRC 1475 warmly congratulates Elsa Küppers on this successful defense!