Transnational Korean Literature

Catalog description

Exploration of seminal Korean texts, including poetry, fiction, autobiography, and criticism, from the early twentieth century to the contemporary era. This course provides a comprehensive overview of modern Korean literature within a transnational context. As we learn how to critically analyze seminal Korean texts, we will locate them in the social, political, economic, and cultural conditions under which they were produced and received. In grappling with some of the fundamental issues they raise;including colonialism, migration, national division, war, gender relations, developmentalism, urbanization, democratization, and contemporary consumer culture;we will also seek to situate these writings in the Korean vernacular within the larger context of global modernity. Rather than take Korean literature and global modernity as given or apart from each other, we will attend to their intersections by raising such questions as: How did modern experiences, constructed through the interface with unfamiliar Others, change preexisting ways of writing and reading? How did foreign occupations affect the formation of a national literature? In what ways do Korean writers' representations of the inter/national events and phenomena on and beyond the Korean peninsula at once enrich and complicate empirical investigations into modern histories of Korea, East Asia, and the world? In an increasingly borderless world, can we draw a boundary around what is called "Korean" literature? In parallel with these questions, we will further discuss why and how to engage in literary practices in the current age of digital reproduction. Instruction and all materials will be in English. No preliminary knowledge of Korean history or language is required for taking this course.