Korea

A Deviant Translation of Modernity: New Criminals and the Emergence of the Detective in Modern Korea

Date
Mon November 4th 2019, 4:30 - 6:00pm
Event Sponsor
Stanford Global Studies Division, Center for East Asian Studies
Location
Humanities Center Board Room
A Deviant Translation of Modernity: New Criminals and the Emergence of the Detective in Modern Korea

Speaker: Jooyeon Rhee

About the talk:

This talk focuses on literary imaginations of crime and punishment by examining New Fiction and translations of Western detective fiction. The periodic focus is early twentieth century during which native literary traditions and practices underwent significant changes due to the influx of Western texts mainly via Japan; and the rapidly changing socio-political reality under the colonial rule. The depiction of crime and punishment in New Fiction and detective fiction in particular reflect the ways in which people viewed their society and the world. By situating the literary imaginations of crime and punishment in the context of colonial modernity, this talk discusses the historical significance of the production and the consumption of the crime-driven narratives where writers and translators “translated” their times through the descriptions of modern law, crimes, madness, and vengeance.

This event is part of the Korean Humanities at Stanford Lecture Series.

About the speaker:

Jooyeon Rhee is Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and Comparative Literature at the Pennsylvania State University who specializes in modern Korean literature and culture. Prior to her current position, she was the director of Korean Studies Program at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Jooyeon’s main research deals with Korean popular literature with particular emphasis on transnational literary exchanges and interactions, and her first book, The Novel in Transition: Gender and Literature in Early Colonial Korea (Cornell University Press, 2019), investigates the transnational feature of modern Korean novels at the intersections of nation and gender. Currently, she is working on a book-length research on cultural imaginations of crime and deviance manifested in Korean detective fiction of late colonial Korea. Her other research interests include diasporic art and literature, popular culture, and representations of gender and sexuality in Korean film and media.

This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP here.

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