Transnational Encounters between Germany and Korea: Affinity in Culture and Politics Since the 1880s

This book examines the history of the German-Korean relationship from the late nineteenth to the twenty-first century, focusing on the nations’ varied encounters with each other during the last years of the Yi dynasty, the Japanese occupation of Korea, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War era. With essays from a range of internationally respected scholars, this collection moves between history, diplomacy, politics, education, migration, literature, cinema, and architecture to uncover historical and cultural intersections between Germany and Korea. Each nation has navigated the challenges of modernity in different ways, and yet traditional East-West dichotomies belie the deeper affinities between them. This book points to those affinities, focusing in particular on the past and present internal divisions that perhaps make Germany and Korea as similar as Germany and Japan.

Contents

• Introduction: Joanne Miyang Cho, Lee M. Roberts

An Overview

• 130 Years of German-Korean Relations: Eun-Jeung Lee, Hannes B. Mosler

German-Korean Relations before 1945

• Paul Georg von Möllendorff: A German Reformer in Korea: Eun-Jeung Lee
• Franz Eckert and Richard Wunsch: Two Prussians in Korean Service: Hans-Alexander Kneider
• Specters of Schinkel in East Asia: Berlin, Tokyo, and Seoul from a Viewpoint of Modernity / Coloniality: Jin-Sung Chun

A Common Fate in the Cold War Era and Beyond

• Korean-German Relations from the 1950s to the 1980s: Archive-Based Approach to Cold War-Era History: Sang-Hwan Seong
• Luise Rinser’s Third-World Politics: Isang Yun and North Korea: Joanne Miyang Cho
• Liminal Visions: Cinematic Representations of the German and Korean Divides: Bruce Williams
• The “Ignorant” Other: Popular Stereotypes of North Koreans in South Korea and East Germans in Unified Germany: Aaron D. Horton
• Illusions of Unity: Life Narratives in Eastern German and North Korean Unification Literature: Birgit Susanne Geipel

The Migration of Ideas and People

• Depictions of the Self as Korean in German-Language Literature by Mirok Li and Kang Moon Suk: Lee M. Roberts
• Endstation der Sehnsüchte: Home-Making of Return Gastarbeiter Migrants: Suin Roberts
• History As a Mirror: Korea’s Appropriation of Germany’s Experience in Rectifying the Past: Ho-Keun Choi
• Goethe’s Faust in the South Korean Manhwa The Tarot Café: Sang-Sun Park’s Critical Project: Kyung Lee Gagum

Source: publisher’s website