ASIAN 3322 - [Modernity and Contested Tradition in Korea]

(GB) (CA-AS)

Spring. Next offered 2017-2018. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

Prerequisite: ASIAN 2218 helpful but not required.

E. Choi.

Re-inventing tradition for political and cultural legitimacy is an integral part of the forward thrust of modernity itself. This production of cultural identity and national history was complicated further when the first modern state structure was a colonial power distinct from the spiritual ethnic “nation” of the colonized people (as was the case of Korea). Understanding how tradition was represented and co-opted during the modern period sheds light on how culture, popular memory, and nationalist politics were imbricated in historical production. Organized around literature, visual culture, and film, this interdisciplinary course will consider the invention of tradition and history writing in modern East Asian historiography and culture, focusing on the areas of cultural nationalism, state formation, royal pageantry, archaeology, popular culture, and tourism in modern and contemporary Korea. (SC)