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Despite Korea's independence from Japan in 1945, collective memories of Japanese colonialism continue to shape South Korean national identity today. This article extends Charland's theory of constitutive rhetoric and reconsiders Billig's theory of banal nationalism to analyse key discourses of national memory in South Korea, including presidential speeches delivered on the Liberation Day of Korea (Gwangbokjeol) and exhibits at the Independence Hall (Dongnip Ginyeomgwan). This article examines how South Korean nationalistic discourses today, by fostering a sustained antagonism towards the Japanese, constitute a national identity in an inextricable relationship to the Japanese Other. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Baseball was introduced to Korea by American missionaries in 1905 but the sport was popularized in Korea during the Japanese Occupation (1910–1945). Baseball in Korea thus took root in relation to two colonizers: Japan and the US. To date, the popularity of baseball among Koreans can still be explained in terms of their relationships with their past colonizers. For example, given the historically constructed status of America as the ‘modern’ Other, the success of a Korean player in American Major League Baseball (MLB) may provoke euphoria, nostalgia and nationalism. Nationalism is most pronounced whenever the Korean national team meets the Japanese at an international baseball tournament; the victory is, for fans, akin to having ‘avenged’ the oppressive Japanese occupation of Korea. This paper argues that recent developments of Korean MLB fans show that the globalizing processes of baseball have fed their nationalism vis-à-vis their past colonial administrators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]