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The present study aims to compare the cinematic propaganda of colonial Korea and Nazi Germany, revealing how the two countries used film to construct narratives of nationalism. Furthermore, this study will aid our recognition and understanding of the similarities and differences between victims and aggressors in spreading nationalist propaganda. Despite the similarities between the colonial Korean and Nazi German film industries in spreading nationalist propaganda, there are significant differences between these two countries' ways of promoting national values: the colonial Koreans adopted transcolonial nationhood (i.e. the strategy of integrating nations), whereas the Nazis excluded minorities, such as Jews. Therefore, dichotomous evaluations of the victim and the aggressor are inconsistent with existing standard interpretations. Colonial Korea, generally known as having experienced the trauma of colonization, also engaged in cinematic fabrication and the weaponization of history, as Nazi Germany did. Propaganda films in both colonial Korea and Nazi Germany played a significant role in reconstructing their national identities. Regarding the cinematic reinvention of these national identities, we should eschew the artificial dichotomy between victims and aggressors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The moon jar is a large-size spherical porcelain vessel, first manufactured in eighteenth-century Korea. Originally used as a storage jar, the moon jar is now a frequently used symbol of Korean history and culture, appearing in various contexts within and outside Korea. I explore how it became a primary icon of Korean identity and analyze the converging factors that have shaped its significance and meanings. The continuous fascination with moon jars mirrors the ongoing search for a definition of Korean national identity, which began when Korea was occupied by Japan in the early twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study approaches postcolonial cultural representation in South Korea and Japan, using the psychoanalytic concepts of mourning and melancholia. By exploring the cases of two famous comic series, one South Korean and the other Japanese – Nambul and Zipang – this essay delves into the triadic structure of non-western colonialism, which has affected popular memory, interpretation, and the representation of colonial history in Korean and Japanese societies. Both the series are alike in that they deal with imaginary war stories, (re)construct alternative history, and present nationalist revisions of historical experiences. Moreover, their view of colonial history involves mourning and melancholia, specific response and reaction toward loss. Their melancholic despair and the mourning practices of the imaginary revision of history in both Nambul and Zipang lead us to focus on the triadic structure of non-western colonialism in Northeast Asia. By introducing the idea of a triadic colonial structure forged between Japan, Korea, and the West, this essay highlights and explain the differences in the sentiments of postcolonial representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Christianity was a new and small religion in Korea at the time, in 1945-48 Christian politicians and church leaders were prominent in establishing an independent South Korea as the Cold War began. Kang In-cheol and others argue that this was because Christians were prejudiced against communists and acted out of self-interest, and they hold them complicit in the subsequent Korean War. We shall argue that many Christian leaders were willing to work with communists to preserve the unity of the nation but their experience convinced them that communist aims were incompatible with religious freedom and with their own vision of a democratic nation founded on Christian principles. Our argument contributes not only to an understanding of Korean nationalism, but also to the broader literature on the roles of Christianity in democratisation. It reveals the significant influence of Christian actors at this critical juncture in Korean and world history, the impact of which is still being felt today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there were various antecedents, the academic discipline of folklore did not begin in Korea until the third decade of the twentieth century. The leading figure in the country’s development of the discipline is Son Chint’ae, who brought rigour to the methods of research and the collection of material; used a comparative method drawing on research from anthropology, ethnography, folklore, archaeology, and history; and saw ‘Korea’ in the broader context of North-east Asia. A nationalist during the Japanese colonial period, Son used the concept ofminchok(the people) both to analyse his material and to serve as a means to revitalize the Korean nation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Nationalism plays a critical role in creating and reformulating collective identity and membership in a political community, notably the nation-state. Yet precisely how it does so and with what consequences for the colonial society remains unclear. Tracing the change of nationalist discourses during the Japanese colonial period in Korea, this essay examines the mechanism through which various forms of anticolonial nationalism provoked ideological schism among indigenous people. It directs particular attention to how Korean nationalist groups integrated notions of the ‘nation’ and ‘people’ into their anticolonial narratives in different ways and why they engaged in political and ideological conflicts among themselves through their interactions with the colonial state. Highlighting the fragmentation of the ‘nation’, ‘state’ and ‘people’ through the dynamics of nationalist groups and colonial power, the essay advances the argument that Japanese colonialism led to internal boundaries in Korea, thus rearticulating the meaning and people's perception of the nation and a sense of belonging. Based on this historical analysis, the essay illuminates the effect of a colonial context as a particular political field upon the formulation of nationalist frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Foundation myths by definition are politically focused tales, describing the origin of nations, states, ruling dynasties, clans, and other consanguineal groups. The myths of Tan’gun and Chumong are the oldest extant foundation myths of Korea, but only the Myth of Tan’gun has had a continuous influence on the affirmation of Korean polities and nationalism for over a thousand years. This article explores why that has been the case. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Growing internet exposure of Korean media and popular culture has highlighted a phenomenon common to Korea for more than 30 years: media celebrities ‘acting black’ for public consumption, while denying accusations of racism. This paper analyses the link between media representations of Korean nationalism and celebrity blackfacing by analysing recent blog and website debates on the phenomenon and argues a direct correlation to a form of Korean nouveau-riche nationalism. It looks at public commentary – both Korean and international – produced over blackfacing acts by ‘K-Pop’ groups such asGirls' Generation,BeastandBubble Sisters, which debate reasons for the media idols' expressions of racism, ethnocentrism and attitudes towards the others, and whether these attitudes are expressed (un)knowingly, and with/without malice. Historically, Korean media has included such negative depictions of African-Americans for more than 30 years, with the depictions generally taken at face-value and as ‘normal’ comedy by Korean audiences. During the pre-internet 1980s, Korean comedians regularly performed skits with Rasta wigs and darkened faces without attracting criticism. However, increasing internet viewerships have focused critical attention on K-Pop celebrity blackfacing, particularly on its active manifestation of Korean nationalism and African-American mimicry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

From 2006 to 2010, I was an activist who organised grassroots campaigns about the so-called “comfort women” in Australia. During the course of these campaigns, this issue was framed in different ways by the Asian diaspora and feminist communities who supported the cause. Beginning with the premise that the human rights activist community is not harmonious or homogenous, nor is it organically formed, I ask the question: what is the task of an activist when faced with diverse and disconnected sources of support for our shared cause? I draw on adaptations of the concept of “imagined community” (Anderson, 1983, p. 7) by Ien Ang and Chandra Talpade Mohanty to discuss this question. I conclude that an activist must not be guided by an emotive and broad sense of “justice” alone. Rather, his or her key task is to seek localised and interdisciplinary knowledge and identity from the particular location of activism in order to mediate between the different “frames of meaning” in diverse communities. [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]

This study looks at how education policies in colonial Korea changed over time in order to accommodate the needs of the colonial authorities during the period of Japanese colonial rule in Korea (1910-1945). The colonial experience can be divided into four different periods according to the four Educational Ordinances issued in 1911, 1922, 1938, and 1943 by the colonial government with each period corresponding to a historic event or context. The constitutive relevance of colonial discourse for an understanding of education can be found in the gradual transformation of the education sector in Korea under colonial rule. It is evident that Japanese colonial policy was inherently contradictory in principle and in practice. On the one hand it sought the assimilation of the Koreans, while on the other it maintained its discriminatory and exploitative practices. Such contradiction was obvious within the colonial education system. As the principal instrument of assimilation, education was regarded as the primary means to subordinate the ethnic identity of the colonised and to transform them into loyal imperial subjects. An overview of the four different periods relevant to the changing circumstances to which the education sector responded reveals the social-historical implications of the instrumentality of colonial education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korean Modern Art History began to be produced in the 1970s, when Western Modernist Art History, based on Formalism, was introduced as a matrix to map the 'evolution' of 20th century Korean Art. Korean modern art history is based in the same paradigm as the West, beginning with Impressionism and 'ending' with Abstract Expressionism. First introduced to the country from the West immediately after the Korean War, Korean Abstract Expressionism is now deemed as South Korea's ultimate 'progressive' and 'modern' art form, a 'Korean' painting style combining the Western art form with traditional artistic concepts of 'Scholarly Painting' (muninhwa). Japanese-influenced painting styles originating in the colonial period (1910-45) are rejected as 'non-authentic.' The problem is that Scholarly Painting was a gender and class specific art born from the rigid Confucian culture of pre-modern Korea, and thus its revival as an 'ultimate modern' and 'Korean' form has the consequence of locating traditionally-gendered notions of art and artist at the core of the South's modern art. This essay uses a Semiotic approach to deconstruct this gendered modernist rhetoric by tracing the emergence of the sign 'Koreaness' in South Korean modern art, showing how it is defined within Korean Abstract Painting as an 'ultimate Korean sign' and how its use of anti-Japanese rhetoric covers up the traumatic history of the Korean War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International adoption from Korea constitutes the background to this study. The forced migration of Korean children has by now continued for over half a century, resulting in a diaspora of more than 150,000 adopted Koreans dispersed among 15 main host countries on the continents of Europe, North America and Oceania. Both the demographic scope, the time span and the geographic spread are absolutely unique in a comparative historical child migratory perspective, and still over 2,000 children leave Korea annually. This massive intercontinental displacement and dispersal of Korean children was, for many years, silently taking place in the shadow of Korea's transformation from a war-torn and poverty-stricken country to a formidable economic success story in the postcolonial world. Even if the subject of international adoption and adopted Koreans turned up now and then in the political debate throughout the years, it was not until the end of the 1980s that a comprehensive discussion started. Ever since, the adoption issue (ibyang munjê) has been haunting Korea as a recurrent subject in Korean media and popular culture. This paper is a reading of the pop group Clon's song Abandoned Child from 1999 and the world-famous Korean director Park Kwang-su's film Berlin Report from 1991 where adopted Koreans are seen as symbols of a divided and dispersed nation. With the background of Korean nationalism with its notion of the nation as family and its strong emphasis on homogeneity and continuity, the point of departure is the very existence of the adopted Koreans as a delicate threat to nationalist ideology, causing anxieties of disrupting a supposedly fixed and unified national identity, and calling into question what it means to be Korean and who belongs to the Korean nation. The reading is grounded on the fact that the subject of separated families is considered to be one of the most important aspects of the Korean reunification discourse, and has become a powerful metaphor of the Korean nation itself. Abandoned Child is the most typical of Korean adoption songs in representing the fate of Korea's 150,000 lost children, and the adoptee of the song is easily transformed into a powerful symbol of one of Korea's numerous separated families. In Berlin Report, the divided and dispersed Korean nation is represented by two separated adopted Koreans longing and searching for each other as the adoption issue is set upon the reunification issue, and their individual traumas become the national trauma of all Koreans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although life for Japan's zainichi Korean population has been influenced by many factors, the development of discourse and debate internal to the zainichi population from the early 1970s onwards reflects enormous change in perspectives of the location of zainichi identity. In this paper I trace the internal discourse produced by zainichi intellectuals and public commentators from the early 1970s until the early 2000s and argue that the genesis of this discourse can be represented by a temporal and spatial shift in power and politics from older to younger generations. This shift in power allowed for the creation of a hybrid identity away from the hegemonic control of zainichi political organisations and anti-Japanese nationalism. In particular, I focus on Kim Iong Myung's articulation of the third way and its progressive, but at the same time excusatory, characteristics and how this and subsequent debate have been concerned primarily with the location of zainichi identity . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]