TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2013//
TI  - Softer soju in South Korea
JO  - Anthropological theory
A1  - Harkness, Nicholas
SP  - 12
EP  - 30
VL  - 13
IS  - 1-2
N2  - This paper explores the ascendancy of 'softness' in South Korea as it is experienced through the qualia of one of Korea's most important social rituals: drinking soju. I combine an analysis of ethnographic evidence with widely-distributed advertisements to show how the experience of an abstract quality, softness, is made concrete by the cultural-semiotic renderings - and genderings - of alcohol consumption in various sensory modalities, including gustation, audition, kinaesthesis, and states of overall drunkenness. I introduce the concept of 'qualic transitivity' to account for the cross-modal perception of qualia as instances of the same quality. I argue that dramatic shifts in the qualia of soju and its consumption are emblematic of a higher-order change in how the ideal relationship between liquor and gender is being reconceptualized in contemporary South Korean society.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1463-4996
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1463499613483394
ID  - ref1
ER  -