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Post-Coloniality and Coloniality in Modernism: Historicizing Modernism and Colonial Modernism in Recent Studies on Modern Korean Literature

  • 탈경계인문학Trans-Humanities
  • 2024, 17(1), pp.145-176
  • DOI : 10.22901/trans.2024.17.1.145
  • Publisher : Ewha Institute for the Humanities: EIH
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : March 15, 2024
  • Accepted : April 17, 2024
  • Published : April 30, 2024

Hyonhui Choe 1

1한국외국어대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Since around 2015, there has been a remarkable shift in modern Korean literary studies toward reinterpreting modernism. Traditionally viewed as opposing the ideologically engaged and realistic tendencies in literature, modernism is being reevaluated through three new lenses. Firstly, the realism versus modernism dichotomy is increasingly seen as a construct emerging from the narrative act of literary historiography, rather than an objective historical fact. Secondly, this period challenges the perceived autonomy of modernist literature from reality by highlighting its direct links to the socio-political and material conditions of its time. Thirdly, within the Korean context, attention is drawn to modernism’s affinity with globality, universality, and Western centrism, advocating for a post-colonial interpretation of modernism’s colonial aspects. Building on this framework, this article delves deeper into the post-colonial critique of modernism’s colonial dimensions, starting with an examination of the New Modernist Studies as a theoretical backdrop. It further investigates the notion of colonial modernism through Choe Hyonhui’s recent work, aiming to highlight the decolonial potential within modernism. By proposing interpretative methods for the colonial modernist readings of Yi Sang, Ch’oe Chaesŏ, and Im Hwa, this article explores new possibilities for the historicization of modernism in modern Korean literary studies.

Citation status

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