Cornerstone of the Nation is the first historical account of the complex alliance of military and civilian forces that catapulted South Korea’s conjoined militarization and industrialization under Park Chung Hee (1961–1979). Kwon reveals how Park’s secret program to build an independent defense industry spurred a total mobilization of business, science, labor, and citizenry, all of … [Read More]
Archives: Books (page 28)
The Late and Post-Dictatorship Cinephilia Boom and Art Houses in South Korea
Examines the 1990s growth of art film exhibition, consumption, and cinephilia within South Korean cinema. This book is a narrative history of art film exhibition and cinephilia in post-dictatorship South Korea It is the first study to consider the practical, cultural, and social experience of cinema-going during a formative period of Korean film history It … [Read More]
Love Songs Sung with the Body
I want to love, I want to hug, I want to be together, I want to be together and look at the same place, but it doesn’t work out. It seems to work but it doesn’t, it seems to work but it doesn’t work. It’s not just an erotic relationship. The appearance of thirst among … [Read More]
I’ll write again tomorrow
May my poetry not lean on plausible deniability, may it not mask or embellish the present me with the past me that has already passed. I hope the things I get angry about don’t harden into conventions, and I hope the things I love are written down waiting to be deepened. From“ Poet’s Essay” He … [Read More]
A Gospel for Workers: Cho Chi Song, Yeongdeungpo Urban Industrial Mission, and Minjung
This book tells three overlapping stories: first, the life story of Rev. Cho Chi Song, a pioneer of urban and industrial missions, which served Korean society’s working population; second, the Urban Industrial Mission (UIM) in Korea, which Cho Chi Song pioneered; and third, the story of how UIM provided the roots for Korean Minjung Theology. … [Read More]
The Korean Welfare State: Social Investment in an Aging Society
The birth and remarkable expansion of Korean social welfare policy over the last several decades has taken place amidst the socio-economic burdens of a rapidly aging society. This book surveys these developments through the analytic lens of the Social Investment State, under which contemporary policies have altered the essential character of the 20th century welfare … [Read More]
Leverage of the Weak: Labor and Environmental Movements in Taiwan and South Korea
Comparing Taiwan and South Korea strategically, Hwa-Jen Liu seeks an answer to a deceptively simple question: Why do social movements appear at different times in a nation’s development? Despite their apparent resemblance—a colonial heritage, authoritarian rule, rapid industrialization, and structural similarities—Taiwan and South Korea were opposites in their experiences with two key social movements. South … [Read More]
The New Asian City: Three-Dimensional Fictions of Space and Urban Form
Under Jini Kim Watson’s scrutiny, the Asian Tiger metropolises of Seoul, Taipei, and Singapore reveal a surprising residue of the colonial environment. Drawing on a wide array of literary, filmic, and political works, and juxtaposing close readings of the built environment, Watson demonstrates how processes of migration and construction in the hypergrowth urbanscapes of the … [Read More]
From Orphan to Adoptee: U.S. Empire and Genealogies of Korean Adoption
Since the 1950s, more than 100,000 Korean children have been adopted by predominantly white Americans; they were orphans of the Korean War, or so the story went. But begin the story earlier, as SooJin Pate does, and what has long been viewed as humanitarian rescue reveals itself as an exercise in expanding American empire during … [Read More]
Service Economies: Militarism, Sex Work, and Migrant Labor in South Korea
Service Economies presents an alternative narrative of South Korean modernity by examining how working-class labor occupies a central space in linking the United States and Asia to South Korea’s changing global position from a U.S. neocolony to a subempire. Making surprising and revelatory connections, Jin-kyung Lee analyzes South Korean military labor in the Vietnam War, domestic … [Read More]
Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War
Since the Korean War—the forgotten war—more than a million Korean women have acted as sex workers for U.S. servicemen. More than 100,000 women married GIs and moved to the United States. Through intellectual vigor and personal recollection, Haunting the Korean Diaspora explores the repressed history of emotional and physical violence between the United States and … [Read More]
The Naked Tree
A delicate, timeless, and breathtaking coming-of-age classic, reimagined Critically acclaimed and award-winning cartoonist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim returns with a stunning addition to her body of graphic fiction rooted in Korean history. Adapted from Park Wan-suh’s beloved novel, The Naked Tree paints a stark portrait of a single nation’s fabric slowly torn to shreds by political upheaval and armed … [Read More]
If You Live To One Hundred, You Might As Well Be Happy: Lessons for a Long and Joyful Life
‘I hope my book will give readers around the world a glimpse into Korean culture and will impact their lives, guiding and comforting them, even half as much as writing it changed mine.’ – Rhee Kun Hoo If You Live to One Hundred, You Might As Well Be Happy captivated South Korea, one of the fastest-ageing countries … [Read More]
Politics of the North Korean Diaspora
Politics of the North Korean Diaspora examines how authoritarian security concerns shape global diaspora politics. Empirically, it traces the recent emergence of a North Korean diaspora – a globally-dispersed population of North Korean émigrés – and argues that the non-democratic nature of the DPRK homeland regime fundamentally shapes diasporic politics. Pyongyang perceives the diaspora as … [Read More]
Mirror Nation
Elegiac and haunting, Mirror Nation by Don Mee Choi completes the KOR-US trilogy, along with Hardly War and the National Book Award–winning DMZ Colony. Much like Proust’s madeleine, a spinning Mercedez Benz ring outside Choi’s Berlin window prompts a memory of her father on the Glienicker Bridge between Berlin and Potsdam, which in turn becomes catalyst for delving into the … [Read More]
The Korean Pentecost: And the Sufferings Which Followed
In 1977 the Trust published this remarkable account of the first 60 years or so of the modern church in Korea (mainly North Korea). William Blair (1876–1970), in his first term of missionary service, was at the centre of the great revival of 1907, and his account of this and the events leading up to … [Read More]