Korean Nationalism Research Articles

Ambiguous Founding Father: Tan’gun as a Korean-Japanese God

Abstract Although Tan’gun, Korea’s mythical founding father, is often depicted as an undisputed symbol of Korean nationalism, this article sheds light on a more complex history in which Tan’gun stands at the center of contesting forces and ambiguous understandings. In fact, besides his nationalist deployment, he was also mobilized as a symbol of Korean-Japanese affinity, which, in turn, was based on centuries of Japanese engagements with the mythical progenitor. As a more cosmopolitan conceptualization of Tan’gun obtained imperialist dimensions in the early twentieth century, it also interacted with and stimulated Korean nationalist utilizations of the founding father. By investigating Tan’gun’s “other” history, this article complicates our understanding of how the figure of Tan’gun evolved into the prime symbol of Korean nationalism and how Koreans negotiated their historical identity within the Japanese empire.

Hybrid in Form, Socialist in Content: The Formal Politics of Chŏlga in the North Korean Revolutionary Opera Sea of Blood

AbstractKim Jong Il considered the 1971 premiere of the opera Sea of Blood a watershed moment in opera history. He lauded its innovative use of chŏlga (‘stanzaic song’) rather than aria and recitative. By Western analytical standards, however, chŏlga is simple and predictable, so scholars have thus far glossed over its conventions and their signification. This article instead argues that chŏlga conventions exhibit cultural hybridity and that Kim leveraged such hybridity to advocate a modern, popular, and national sound for North Korea. I begin by outlining hybrid characteristics of colonial-era popular music that chŏlga inherited. I then explore Kim's engagement with such trends in his speeches on chŏlga and demonstrate that cultural hybridity was central to his understanding of sonic modernity. Finally, I analyse a scene from Sea of Blood that pits chŏlga against other music genres, leading to a symbolic victory for the form and for the Korean nation.

해방 직후 간도에서 발행된 『우리國史』의 체재와 한국사 인식 - 桂奉瑀의 『最新東國史』에서 『우리國史』로 -

This article explores Gye Bongu’s historical accounts and view of Korean history through the history textbook Our National History (Uri yeoksa 우리역사) published in Gando immediately after the 1945 Liberation.BR The Our National History, produced via mimeograph in three volumes in November 1945, has the same content as the Up-to-Date History of the Eastern Country (Choesin Dongguksa 최신동국사) written by Gye Bongu in the Society for the Education of Korean Settlers (Ganmin gyoyukoe 간민교육회). The Our National History (and the Up-to-Date History of the Eastern Country) divides Korean history into early antiquity (Buyeo and Four Kingdoms), middle antiquity (Southern and Northern Dynasties and Goryeo), and late antiquity (Joseon and the Great Han). Gye’s periodization of Korean history is unique to him that cannot be found in other history books from late Joseon to the early Japanese colonial periods.BR He recognized the history of Old Joseon as pivoting on the Buyeo tribes, described the ancient history centered on Goguryeo and Balhae, and emphasized the unification of the Korean nation by Goryeo, not Silla. This view of history reveals the influence of contemporary nationalist historians such as Park Eunsik and Shin Chaeho. Gye had a negative view of Joseon, regarding the fall of Goryeo and the founding of Joseon as the vanishing of national essence and martial spirit. As for the history of the Great Han Empire, he emphasized the anti-Japanese struggle of the ‘righteous army’ and the introduction of modern education, viewing the latter focusing on history was crucial to nurture independence activists in Gando. That was the reason he wrote a history textbook called the Up-to-Date History of the Eastern Country.

An Old Right in New Bottles: State without Nation in South Korean New Right Historiography

The New Right movement that arose in the early 2000s in South Korea was a response to a change in ownership of Korean nationalist discourse during the preceding decades. Although nationalism was the preserve of the South Korean right wing from the trusteeship crisis in 1945 through the end of the Park Chung Hee regime, a historiographical revolt in the 1980s that emphasized the historical illegitimacy of the South Korean state allowed the Left to appropriate nationalism. With the loss of nationalism from its arsenal, the Right turned to postnationalist neoliberal discourse to blunt the effectiveness of leftist nationalist rhetoric. An examination of New Right historiography on the colonial and postliberation periods, however, shows that despite the recent change in conservatives’ stance on nationalism, a preoccupation with the legitimacy of the South Korean state remains at the center of right-wing historical narratives. The New Right represents old wine in new bottles.

한국사 정체론 비판과 1960년대 한국사 발전론의 확립

This paper sought to prove that criticism and overcoming of the stagnation theory in Korean history, which is the core content of colonialist historiography, has been established as development theory in Korean history since 1960 by two different historical views - ‘modernization theory from the U.S.’ and historical materialism. The stagnation theory in Korean history, started as the theory of ‘lack of feudalism’ in the beginning of the 20th century, has served as a key theory that justified Japanese rule over Korea even after Korea''s liberation. On the contrary, Korean Marxists have formed the development theory of Korean history by embracing the proposition of historical materialism since the 1930s, claiming that feudalism, bourgeoisie, and the bourgeois democratic movement existed in Korean history. The development theory of Korean history has been established since 1960, when the modernization theory from the U.S. was accepted and Marxist and neo-nationalist historiography were revived. The modernization theory was intended to prove the development of Korean history by detecting similar phenomena as the capitalist development of Western Europe, and to recognize capitalism under the Japanese rule as ‘modernization from outside’. However, due to Korean nationalist backlash, the introduction of modern systems or the development of capitalism under the influence of Japan have never been approved as “modernization”. Historical materialism played an important role in detecting “capitalist sprout” in Korean history such as rich farmers and hand industries growing into capitalists, accepting the achievements of “controversy over transition from feudalism to capitalism”. It was applied to the period classification of the Korean history. However, it was difficult to distinguish historical materialism from modernization theory, because it was domesticated to nationalism enough to remove its key elements such as class confrontation and struggle. The intact historical materialism, distinct from the modernization theory, began to emerge in Korean historiography in the 1980s through the Gwangju People''s Resistance, the growth of Korean capitalism, and the development of popular movements.

BETWEEN COMMON HUMANITY AND PARTIALITY: THE CHOGYE BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY MANUAL OF THE SOUTH KOREAN MILITARY AND ITS RELEVANCE TO INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW

ABSTRACT The Chogye Order of Korean Buddhism (K. Chogye chong or Jogyejong 曹溪宗) compiled a booklet called Kukkun pŏbyo chip (Essential Buddhist Teachings for the Armed Forces, 國軍法要集, EBTAF hereafter), which is distributed in the military Buddhist temples (K. kun sachal; Ch. jun sisha 軍寺刹) of South Korea. This manual for Buddhist military personnel draws on Buddhist classical texts and teachings to provide them both with doctrinal and practical information, and guidance as well as litanies for chaplains to perform crucial rites such as funerals. At the same time the EBTAF contains some distinctively Korean Buddhist references and ideas, and combines them with elements of Korean nationalism. In this context, this article analyses (1) the ideal traits of Buddhist combatants suggested in the EBTAF and their compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL); (2) the conflicting values illustrated in the booklet between Buddhist soldiers’ religious aspirations to uphold common humanity and the partiality inherent in their governmental affiliation; and (3) a passage to resolve the disparity. While the EBTAF aligns with IHL principles, some parts of it reflect a tension between Buddhist aspirations for peace and the military necessities of the state. Though IHL is not explicitly mentioned in the EBTAF, there is potential for embedding education on mutually complementary Buddhist and IHL values into Korean military chaplaincy.

세종 성군 논란을 통해 본 뉴라이트 역사인식의 확산과 한국사 연구의 ‘탈식민’ 문제

South Korean economic historian Yi Yŏng-hun’s arguments on King Sejong in a youtube media lecture in 2016 and its publication into a book called Sejong ŭn kwayŏn sŏnggun in’ga in 2018, has triggered controversial disputes, across the popular internet media space, over King Sejong and his rule which have enjoyed its most iconic status as the all time favorite national hero or saint king within the context of South Korean nationalism. Based on a post colonial and a transnational approach, this paper first examines the perspective and the logic of Yi’s main arguments on King Sejong and his rule. Then, this paper will continue to provide critical analysis that Yi’s argument is not only to debunk Sejong myth built by the main streams of the studies of Korean history in South Korea, but also to expand the narrow horizon of South Korean New-Right revisionist historiography that only include hundred years of history from late 19th to late 20th century into wide open several hundred years of Choson dynasty history all the way up to King Sejong’s reign in early 15th century. Then, this paper will ultimately aim to show how Yi’s reinterpretation will end up only supporting Japanese far right historical revisionism’s arguments on perennial controversial issues between Korea and Japan, including “comfort women” that originate back from Japanese colonialism in early 20th century. And Finally I will talk about some crucial points on the issues of post-coloniality exposed by the controversies of Yi’s arguments in the studies of Korean history here in South Korean academia, and I will also talk about what the Korean historians studying Chosŏn history should critically examine to cope with far-right historical revisionism in this age of new media.

Jaehyeon Jeong (2020). Korean Food Television and the Korean Nation, Lexington Books

Jaehyeon Jeong (2020). Korean Food Television and the Korean Nation, Lexington Books

The Feminization of Translation

Abstract The awarding of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize to Deborah Smith’s English translation of The Vegetarian brought global recognition to emergent Korean literature, but domestically it has sparked outrage among numerous Korean scholars who believe the literal inaccuracies in Smith’s translation have brought about a “national disgrace.” Situating this overheated reaction in the larger context of the colonial history of Korean nationalism, this article points out the irony that the “noble cause” of anti-imperialist resistance has historically led to the silencing of women’s voices in the context of preserving and transmitting an idea of quintessential Korean culture to an international audience. Such nationalist tendencies demand the “feminization” of the translator—requesting her to be barely visible while performing a self-effacing humility in deference to the putatively “original” culture. In contrast to this tendency, reading Han’s original and Smith’s translation together makes visible the damages that both colonization and nationalism have inflicted on the representation of female experiences. In the end, what truly scandalizes nationalist critics is not the failure of the translator to accurately convey Korean experiences, but the success of the translation in conveying an area of Korean experience they tend to neglect: that of female subjectivity.

Nostalgic nationalists in South Korea: the flag-carriers’ struggles

ABSTRACT The 2016–2017 Candlelight Revolution was one of the most significant events in recent South Korean politics, but little attention has been paid to the powerful conservative counter-movement that accompanied and followed the candlelight protests. This counter-movement was symbolized by demonstrations by flag-carriers who found Park Geun-Hye’s impeachment and Moon Jae-In’s inauguration incomprehensible. They argued that Park was innocent, called for her release from prison, and claimed that Moon’s election was illegitimate. An analysis of speeches made during conservative counter-protests between 2016 and 2019 illustrates how these activists reject the values of a new era in South Korean political and economic life. Instead, their speeches conveyed a clear desire to have the legacy of the industrialization generation recognized in contemporary South Korea. These flag-carriers are evidence that a marginalized set of desires and aspirations about South Korean nationalism and identity coexist with the progressive views of the candlelight protesters. The persistence of such an intense and partisan worldview, however, poses a threat to the future of liberal democracy in South Korea.

북한 민족주의와 젠더: 민족 재생산의 주체로서의 여성

본 연구는 북한 민족주의의 부상 과정에서 여성이 민족의 재생산자로서 가졌던 역할과 기능을 밝히려는 시도이다. 근대 민족주의의 거대한 파고 속에 젠더문제는 오랫동안 은폐된 상태로 남겨져 있었다. 그러나 일련의 페미니즘 연구는 민족주의가 지닌 가부장성을 드러냄으로써 민족주의와 젠더 연구에 상당한 성과를 거두어 왔다. 하지만 이와 같은 성찰에도 불구하고 여전히 한계는 남아있었다. 그것은 민족주의와 페미니즘의 관계를 적대적인 것으로 보건 연대의 틀에서 보건 여전히 여성을 민족주의의 내부가 아닌 외부에 존재하는 객체이자 대상으로 간주하고 있다는 점이었다. 민족과 국가에 일방적으로 통합된 ‘부분’으로 보거나 그것의 발전과 안위를 위해 희생하는 ‘외부의 보조자’로 보는 관점을 극복하고 민족이라는 ‘경계’와 ‘정체성’ 자체를 만들어내는 역할에 주목할 필요가 있다는 것이다. 본 연구는 이러한 전제 하에 생물학적 차원과 문화적·상징적 차원으로 구분하여 여성이 북한 민족의 재생산 과정에 어떻게 참여해 왔는지를 밝혀내고자 했다.

Hegemony, domination and opposition: Fluctuating Korean nationalist politics at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang

This article is concerned with the contested nature of nationalism expressed through sport. The 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang offers some useful episodes where I can investigate a different type of Korean nationalism represented through sport. At this Winter Olympics, I observed four distinctive discourses on Korean identity being displayed via the winter sporting competition: 1) unified Korean ethnic nationalism, 2) South Korean state patriotic nationalism, 3) postcolonial anti-imperialist nationalism, and 4) cosmopolitan Korean identity. The four variants of nationalism were vying for the dominant position in the hierarchy of South Korean politics, and the Winter Olympics presented a platform on which each nationalist group asserts the legitimacy of their sense of nationhood. Therefore, I conclude that the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang was not simply a physical contest between athletes but more importantly, was a field of the hegemonic struggle between adherents of different nationalistic views.

Discourse on nationalism in colonial period of Korea

Nationalism may be described as a frame of mind in which a person perceives that his fellow members owe his or her supreme loyalty to the nation-state. Resilient attachment to own country, indigenous culture, and the conventional local authority can be present in the long history of a nation, but nationalism in modern sense presumes the existence of a nation and a sheer will to modernize itself to protect the sovereignty of a particular nation. The colonial period of Korea lasted from August 1910 to August 1945. During the colonial period, the Korean nationalism became strongly anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism. Its ultimate objective was to oust the Japanese imperialist forces from the Korean peninsula, and its immediate task was to preserve the racial and cultural heritage of the Korean people. The development of nationalist narratives in the subsequent colonial period also resulted in an ideological and political clash among the Korean nationalists. After the March First Movement, the governor-general of Korea allowed some relaxations for cultural activities. The nationalists utilized this opportunity to further develop the nationalist discourses. With the integration of international narratives such as socialism and liberalism, diverse forms of anti-colonial discourses developed in Korea which resulted in “ideological schisms” among the nationalists of Korea during the 1920s. Although, there was a commonality in the objective of ousting the Japanese imperial power from the Korean peninsula. There also developed the contentious relationship between competing groups such as reformists and leftists and rose to its peak in the early 1930s. In this research paper, I shall argue that that Korean nationalism discourse during the colonial period evolved more as anti-colonial in nature despite political and ideological indifference. Also, I shall look into the different phases of the Japanese rule and the Korean response to analyse the Korean nationalism discourse during the colonial period.

Nature Republic dan Innisfree Sebagai Soft Power Brand Ambasador and Personality Korea Selatan di Indonesia

Brand Ambassador is an instrument of achieving the interests of the state which is popularly used South Korea as one example of countries that use their Brand Using (Hallyu) as the mediums to get achieved success in Indonesia. in 2002, Indonesia began to look at South Korea by showing Korean drama with the introduction of Korean drama in Indonesia through private television. The reason for the development of Korean pop culture (Korean Wave) in Indonesia is the embodiment of globalization. In the communication and cultural dimensions, South Korea is increasingly recognized by the Indonesian public drama that aired in Indonesia became the gateway for the entry of other Korean cultural products or known by the name Hallyu / Korean Wave, such as Korean pop music (K-Pop), Korean food (K-Food ), and Korean language and letters (Hangeul). It also makes many products made in Korea also enter Indonesia, including cosmetics, automotive, electronics, etc. As a form of Korean Nation Brand in Indonesia. So, Indonesian people can feel about (Hallyu) that came in. The purpose of this study will look at how Indonesia's attitude in responding to it and what is driving Indonesia's response to the phenomenon of Korean Skincare that uses as Diplomacy in Indonesia.

1962년 박정희의 통화개혁과 한국의 민족주의

1962년 박정희의 통화개혁과 한국의 민족주의

중국 소비자의 쇼핑가치와 한국에 대한 국가이미지가 쇼핑 후 행동에 미치는 영향

This study investigated the effects of shopping value and Korean nation image on post-shopping satisfaction, word-of-mouth intention, and revisit intention when shopping for Korean fashion brands in China. A total of 495 data were analyzed by factor analysis, reliability analysis, ANOVA, Ducan test, and regression analysis using SPSS 25.0. The results of the study are summarized as follows. First, the Chinese consumers

Mega Sport Event and Korea Sport Culture*

The purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics of sports culture in Korea, which hosted the Mega sport event. In Korean society, sports were used by the state as a means of effectively reinforcing social cohesion. It is possible to find “Nationalism” and “Statism” in the sport segment of Korean society, where the state has played a main role in its social development. As a background of sport culture in Korean society, nationalism and statism have contributed to develop the Korean sport culture, which is mainly produced by the state, and its citizens consume these formulated sporting events. By holding the Winter and Summer Olympics and the World Cup, the characteristics of Korean sport culture have become clearer. However, the state-centered plan of sport culture in Korean society resulted in alienating the citizens who identified as cultural producers.

Rewriting the Feminine Construction of a Nation in Comfort Woman by Nora Okja Keller

This essay highlights the way Keller’s novel, Comfort Woman (1997) explores the connection between women’s sexual bodies, colonialism and Korean nationalism. Through the resistance of heroic women characters against patriarchal definitions and feminization of a colonized nation, Keller narrates subversive feminist resistance to humiliating inscriptions of patriarchy and colonialism onto the sexual bodies of women. The text is closely analysed using tools of literary devices, in particular, subversive strategies and the idea of silences as a tool and a theme to convey the unspoken and the unspeakable. Soon Hyo’s passive silences as a comfort woman in the comfort camps and her transformation later to paranormal articulations as a shaman is interpreted as powerful forms of resistance against patriarchy’s inscription upon her body. Her silent passivity, re-interpreted as a form of active resistance becomes more meaningful as she wrestles back the identities and recognition for the thousands of comfort women that would otherwise be forgotten. Comfort Woman inquires into the links between languages, silences and subjectivity, colonial domination and Korean nationalism, sexuality and nation, resisting any attempts at separating the links. Keller invoked the power of performance and silences in the form of “strange” articulations and tropes which were culturally specific as subversive means of re-telling her story and inscribing new meanings onto women’s sexual bodies, thus rewriting the feminine constructions of a nation.

The Male Malady of Globalization

In this article I analyze how masculinity has been co-constructed with sexual violence within a narrative of national and personal redemption in South Korea. In examining what I identify as phallocentric nationalism, I trace the symbolic construction of the penis—naturalized in its erect, penetrating form and its participation in heterosex—as a source of masculine power within a nationalist discourse of emasculation and recuperation in Korea. Tracing the representation of this penetrative masculinity alongside its penetrated corollary in the whore/wife binary, across a range of literary, cinematic, and legal discourses, I analyze how male sexual violence has been understood, practiced, regulated, and resisted. It is within the “imagined nation” (Anderson 1983) of Korea that the penis comes to stand in for masculine power, men’s relationships to women, the Korean nation, and the world at large. The penis and its medicalization since the 1990s further provide a productive site to examine how meta-narratives about the nation, gender, and sexuality translate into individual desires, embodied practices, and erotic entanglements in Korea. I refer to these desires and anxieties invested in the penis as the male malady of globalization.

Protestant Rites and the Problem of Religious Difference in Colonial Korea

Abstract Colonial Korean society was a crucible of ritual conflict and innovation. The confluence of Protestant expansion, Japanese colonization, and cultural nationalism during the early twentieth century brought sweeping changes to Korean ritual life, especially to the all-important Confucian rites of passage. This article examines print media discussions of Protestant rites from the late 1910s to the early 1930s to trace how religious difference emerged as a political problem for Korean cultural nationalists. Early on, Protestant missionaries had banned ancestral veneration and other folk customs while spreading liturgical (marriage and funerary) ceremonies, in an effort to inculcate orthodox doctrines among new believers. Converts’ rejection of indigenous Confucian rites in favor of their own practices, however, soon became the focal point of heated public debates. When Protestants condemned ancestral rites as idolatry, they maligned fellow Koreans as primitive. Meanwhile, the rapid proliferation of Western-style church weddings excessively disseminated religious practices. Above all, cultural nationalists grew alarmed at how faith communities threatened to splinter society, diverting Koreans away from national concerns toward sectarian interests. I argue that Protestant rites prompted nationalist intellectuals to grapple with the sacred and secular, ultimately producing a narrow vision of religion subsumed under the aegis of the nation.