The Comparative Histories of Asia Seminar is pleased to present: Global Japan Series: Professor Takashi Fujitani, University of California, San Diego ‘Korean Soldiers in the Japanese Amy: Some Reflections on Inclusionary or Polite Racism in WWII’ Thursday 25 February 2010, 5:30-7pm Room G37, South Block, Senate House Building, University of London All welcome. [Read More]
Category: Colonial period (page 4)
Free love, chastity and nationalism in Han Yongun’s novel “Death”
Brief notes from the recent talk at SOAS, which probably involve getting hold of the wrong end of several sticks… Han Yongun was the most renowned Buddhist nationalist poet of the colonial period. He was jailed for his involvement in the March 1st movement, and composed his famous poetry cycle “Silence of my love” while … [Read More]
Han Yongun: Questioning a monk’s nation-building project
More details about this Friday’s seminar at SOAS Friday, January 29th, 5pm, room G50 (main building) Jung-Shim Lee, Leiden University Han Yongun’s posthumous novel Death: Questioning a monk’s nation-building project Abstract: This paper will explore how a Korean monk Han Yongun produced Confucian-inspired nation-building ideas in his novel Death (죽음, 1924). Han Yongun (韓龍雲, 1879-1944) … [Read More]
Book Review: From Wonso Pond
Kang Kyong-ae: From Wonso Pond Tr Samuel Perry Feminist Press, 2009 Originally published 1934 in the Donga Ilbo It’s the 1930s. In colonial Korea, economic development brings factories and work to Incheon, Seoul and other centres of population, while in the countryside the semi-feudal lifestyle continues. The local yangban plots which local lass to deflower … [Read More]
Ch’udo yebae: Christian Accommodation to Korean Ancestral Rites
Details of November’s Global Korea Lecture at the Cultural Centre: Tuesday 24th November 2009, 6.30pm Subject: Ch’udo yebae: Christian Accommodation to Korean Ancestral Rites Speaker: Professor James H. Grayson (School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield) Venue: Multi-purpose Hall, Korean Cultural Centre According to the 2005 Korean Household and Population Census, Christians now represent … [Read More]
Henry’s War – an illustrated talk on early 20th Century Korea
A talk on Korean History in the early 20th century by Mr Patrick Cockburn of the Independent Newspaper Tuesday 10 March 2009 18:00-19:00 at the KCCUK Links: Henry’s war: One man’s fight against rendition, Patrick Cockburn, Independent, Thursday 6 December 2007 [Read More]
Yuasa Katsuei: a Japanese colonial novelist
Yuasa Katsuei: Two Japanese Colonial Novels Kannani (1934), Document of Flames (1935). Translated by Mark Driscoll, Duke University Press (2005) Yuasa Katsuei was born in Japan in 1910 and before his second birthday moved to Korea where his father worked in the colonial police force. He went to university in Tokyo from 1929, before returning … [Read More]
Book review: The Dawn of Modern Korea
Andrei Lankov – The Dawn of Modern Korea EunHaeng NaMu publishing, 2008 This entertaining book has, paradoxically, taken me a devil of a long time to finish. That’s not because it’s difficult. It’s because it’s the opposite. The book is co-branded with a series of articles that Andrei Lankov has been writing for the Korea … [Read More]
Kajiyama Toshiyuki: The Clan Records – Five Stories of Korea
The Clan Records – Five Stories of Korea: The Clan Records | Seeking Life Amidst Death: The Last Day of the War | When the Hibiscus Blooms | The Remembered Shadow of the Yi Dynasty | A Crane on a Dunghill: Seoul in 1936 Kajiyama Toshiyuki, translated by Yoshiko Dykstra (University of Hawaii Press, 1995) … [Read More]
Donald Kirk & Choe Sang-hun (eds): Korea Witness
Korea Witness: 135 Years of War, Crisis and News in the Land of the Morning Calm (EunHaengNaMu, Seoul, 2006) A tribute to the many foreign correspondents who have worked in Seoul, this book celebrates 50 years of the Seoul Foreign Correspondents Club. The book starts with one of the first mentions of Korea in the … [Read More]
Chae Man-sik: Peace Under Heaven
English Translation by Chun Kyung-ja: ME Sharpe, 1993. Originally published as 태평천하 in 1938 An entertaining comedy chronicling a day or so in the life of a lecherous, foul-mouthed nouveau riche landlord. It captures a snapshot of Seoul under Japanese colonial occupation, but the Japanese impinge very little on the narrative. The book has larger … [Read More]
Keith Howard (ed): True Stories of the Korean Comfort Women.
(Cassell, 1995). Does what it says on the tin. Testimonies by former comfort women. Don’t read this all at once. It’s overwhelming. Update 9 July 2011. In an email to the members of the British Association for Korean Studies, Keith Howard gave the following background to the publication: ‘True Stories of the Korean Comfort Women’ … [Read More]
Sport and nationalism: YMCA Baseball Team
We’ve just witnessed the triumph and then despair following the ups and downs of the Korean team in the baseball world cup. And the TV commercials are now full of football references. So I just put my copy of YMCA Baseball Team in the DVD player (it’s been on my to-watch pile for rather too … [Read More]
Yom Sang-seop: Three Generations
(Archipelago, 2005) Translated by Yu Young-nan. First published in Korean in 1931 as 삼 대 and revised in 1948. Chronicles the lives of an extended wealthy family in Japanese-occupied Seoul. The old order gradually fades, the vultures descend for the pickings, while an underground of nationalists and socialists struggle to make a difference. Recommended. Available … [Read More]