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Lecture Series - 2005

"The Emergence of the Detail in Late Colonial Korea."

Dr. Janet Poole
March 17th , Friends of Music Room, University Auditorium, 1pm

This talk considers the impact of the photographic image on writing in late colonial Korea . It centers on the question of detail and description, asking what it means when the detail enters narrative at particular historical moments. In Korea , the late 1930s saw the entrance of the detail into fiction with a new force and proliferation that provoked much controversy amongst intellectuals at the time. The coincidence of this proliferating detail with the intensification of Japanese colonial assimilation policies raised suspicions that the two were somehow complicit. Did the detail represent a breakdown of revolutionary aspirations? Or, was it merely a sign of sophistication in narrative? Most importantly, what vision of reality…or way of seeing the world--did it authorize?