The Real Modern

Christopher P. Hanscom

ISBN 10: 0674073266 / ISBN 13: 9780674073265

Published by Harvard University, Asia Center, US, 2013

About this Item

The contentious relationship between modernism and realism has powerfully influenced literary history throughout the twentieth century and into the present. In 1930s Korea, at a formative moment in these debates, a "crisis of representation" stemming from the loss of faith in language as a vehicle of meaningful reference to the world became a central concern of literary modernists as they operated under Japanese colonial rule.Christopher P. Hanscom examines the critical and literary production of three prose authors central to 1930s literary circles-Pak T'aewon, Kim Yujong, and Yi T'aejun-whose works confront this crisis by critiquing the concept of transparent or "empiricist" language that formed the basis for both a nationalist literary movement and the legitimizing discourse of assimilatory colonization. Bridging literary and colonial studies, this re-reading of modernist fiction within the imperial context illuminates links between literary practice and colonial discourse and questions anew the relationship between aesthetics and politics.The Real Modern challenges Eurocentric and nativist perspectives on the derivative particularity of non-Western literatures, opens global modernist studies to the similarities and differences of the colonial Korean case, and argues for decolonization of the ways in which non-Western literatures are read in both local and global contexts.

Seller Inventory # LU-9780674073265

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Real Modern
• Publisher: Harvard University, Asia Center, US
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674073266
• ISBN 13: 9780674073265
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

The contentious relationship between modernism and realism has powerfully influenced literary history throughout the twentieth century and into the present. In 1930s Korea, at a formative moment in these debates, a “crisis of representation” stemming from the loss of faith in language as a vehicle of meaningful reference to the world became a central concern of literary modernists as they operated under Japanese colonial rule.

Christopher P. Hanscom examines the critical and literary production of three prose authors central to 1930s literary circles―Pak T’aewon, Kim Yujong, and Yi T’aejun―whose works confront this crisis by critiquing the concept of transparent or “empiricist” language that formed the basis for both a nationalist literary movement and the legitimizing discourse of assimilatory colonization. Bridging literary and colonial studies, this re-reading of modernist fiction within the imperial context illuminates links between literary practice and colonial discourse and questions anew the relationship between aesthetics and politics.

The Real Modern challenges Eurocentric and nativist perspectives on the derivative particularity of non-Western literatures, opens global modernist studies to the similarities and differences of the colonial Korean case, and argues for decolonization of the ways in which non-Western literatures are read in both local and global contexts.

About the Author

Christopher P. Hanscom is Assistant Professor of Korean Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles.