Gyu Been Moon
문규빈文奎彬
I study how the late Chosŏn state produced, transmitted, and acted upon administrative knowledge. My current research reconstructs the Ŭlmyo Incident of 1795 and the Sinyu prosecutions of 1801 through close comparison of court records, legal documents, genealogies, and later historical narratives.
My current work examines how legal categories, administrative records, and later narrative traditions shaped the historical memory of Catholic cases in late Chosŏn.
01 / Featured project
Administrative Knowledge and Historical Reconstruction in the Ŭlmyo Incident
In publication process
This article compares the 1795 administrative record, the 1801 interrogation archive, and later inherited narratives to ask when Zhou Wenmo became a stable object of state knowledge. It separates the chronology of Zhou’s presence from the chronology of his administrative identification.
Read project overview02 / Project
Han Yŏngik between Narrative Construction and the Genealogical Record
In publication process
This article reconstructs Han Yŏngik independently of the role later narratives assigned him. It compares witness traditions with genealogical, administrative, autobiographical, and missionary records.
View project03 / Project
Disaggregating the Sinyu Catholic Case of 1801
In progress
This project separates legal and political processes conventionally grouped together as a single persecution. It asks how distinct prosecutorial sequences acquired one retrospective historical identity.
My work treats historical knowledge as an administrative product rather than a transparent description of events. I reconstruct how claims moved between offices, genres, and later narratives by comparing parallel records, identifying textual alterations, and distinguishing contemporaneous evidence from retrospective attribution.
Parallel reading across court diaries, annals, administrative compilations, legal records, genealogies, and manuscript traditions.
Attention to omission, interpolation, name corruption, compiler glosses, and the movement of claims between sources.
Analysis of jurisdiction, legal categories, bureaucratic sequence, and the conditions under which knowledge became actionable.
A phrase in the 1795 record
“Falsely claiming to be a Chinese person”
This phrase appears in the 1795 administrative record before the court had securely identified Zhou Wenmo. Its legal and evidentiary function is central to my reconstruction of the Ŭlmyo Incident.
See the source noteCurrent manuscripts and research projects arising from my work on late Chosŏn administrative and legal history.
In publication process
In publication process
Independent research project in development
I teach critical reading, academic writing, formal logic, rhetorical analysis, and evidence-based argumentation. My teaching emphasizes the movement from textual observation to defensible interpretation—the same habits that structure my historical research.
Gyu Been Moon is currently conducting independent research in late Chosŏn political history from Katy, Texas. He received his B.A. in Political Science with departmental honors from the University of California, Irvine and works extensively with Classical Chinese administrative records.