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A Representation for Manchuria as a Propagandization and The Politics of Desire

KWAK EUN HEE 1

1대구대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

In this article, I tried to analyze such materials as travel essay, field tour report and symposium materials on Manchuria, based on the idea that an ‘utopian desire’ towards a better life is presented through Manchuria which was a testing ground of modern society and the way out of colonial Korea. The travel essay of Manchuria is a ‘topography of desire’ to encourage and manage a public desire of Manchuria, by creating a representation of Manchuria which the Japanese Empire want to create. On the other hand, the more fantasy which an utopian presentation created is overflowed, the more a point of surplus to not be suture come to uprise in the inside of propaganda. Also, the utopian desire of Manchuria may not be suture with an unilinear and uniform approach such as ‘migration→pioneer→settlement’. While ‘the dream of settlement through labor’ was a central axis to made Manchuria utopia, ‘the dream for homecoming through a play’ was another central axis to crack that utopia. The mechanism of the positive to reach a voluntary agreement may appeal to the public’s desire, and may be operated by nourishing the desire, however, at the same time, it brings a new form of violence called to ‘a violence of positivity’. The ‘violence of positivity’ is the nature of propaganda to disguise mobilization as the name of passion, and to suture a compulsion with a revelation of the free will.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.