Rethinking Modern Korean Literature and the Postcolonial Politics of the Nation

This talk will examine how sinsosŏl, a genre of popular vernacular fiction from early 20th century Korea, came to play a central role in defining modern Korean literature as a national literature. I show how South Korean scholars across the political spectrum foregrounded the nation in their readings of sinsosŏl works, whether to extol or lament the extent to which these works represented Korea’s capacity to achieve modernity on its own—that is, its ability to assert itself as a sovereign nation during the Age of Imperialism. While such readings have shed light on Korean anticolonialism under Japanese rule and its relationship to South Korean resistance against the Cold War, they have precluded discussions on the colonialist aspects of the concept of the nation itself. I return to sinsosŏl to propose a different mode of reading its constitutive works—one that does not rely on the colonialist nation as its frame of reference—to rethink the bounds of modern Korean literature. 

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About the speaker:

HeeJin Lee is Assistant Professor of Korean Language and Culture in the Department of East Asian Languages, Literatures & Cultures at the University of Virginia. She is a scholar of Korean literature and culture whose research focuses on establishing connections between modern Korean literature and other literatures from across the world in ways that overcome colonial power dynamics inherent in various approaches to literary comparison. Lee received her Ph.D. from UCLA, her J.D. from the University of Iowa College of Law, and her A.B. from Harvard. Prior to her current position at Virginia, she was a Pony Chung Fellow and Research Professor at the Research Institute of Korean Studies at Korea University.