Ann Choi Wan, professor and scholar of Korean literature, will introduce audiences to Korea’s literary traditions at The Korea Society on February 17, 2011. The lecture will consider the genres that flourished before the modern period, the role of Confucianism in establishing the value of social harmony and collectivity, and reach into the twentieth century, when romantic love became a new value associated with individualism and the driving theme of the first “modern” Korean novels.
Choi will examine the break from traditional literature to that created under Japanese rule, when progress also came to be seen as alienation, and writers examined the human cost of modernity and colonialism. The discussion of modern Korean literature begins with Yi Kwangsu’s “Mujeong” (“The Heartless”) and Yi Sang’s seminal and Kafka-esque work “Wings”—works that represent these two contending forces of modernity associated with the emergence of the autonomous self. The presentation also contains a discussion of the literature of the Korean War and its aftermath, which focuses on the trauma and the possibilities of healing a divided self and nation. The talk will conclude with an examination of the impact of South Korea’s prosperity and globalization on the creation of the “postnational” self by a new generation of well-traveled writers.
MODERN KOREAN LITERATURE:
SEARCHING FOR IDENTITY AT HOME AND IN THE WORLD
Ann Choi Wan
Independent Scholar and Writer
Thursday, February 17, 2011
6:30–8:30 PM
This lecture series is supported by a grant from the
