
Imperial Romance
Fictions of Colonial Intimacy in Korea, 1905-1945
Su Yun Kim(Author)
Cornell University Press
Published on 15. November 2020
Book
Hardback
204 pages
978-1-5017-5188-2 (ISBN)
Description
In Imperial Romance, Su Yun Kim argues that the idea of colonial intimacy within the Japanese empire of the early twentieth century had a far broader and more popular influence on discourse makers, social leaders, and intellectuals than previously understood. Kim investigates representations of Korean-Japanese intimate and familial relationships-including romance, marriage, and kinship-in literature, media, and cinema, alongside documents that discuss colonial policies during the Japanese protectorate period and colonial rule in Korea (1905-45).
Focusing on Korean perspectives, Kim uncovers political meaning in the representation of intimacy and emotion between Koreans and Japanese portrayed in print media and films. Imperial Romance disrupts the conventional reading of colonial-period texts as the result of either coercion or the disavowal of colonialism, thereby expanding our understanding of colonial writing practices. The theme of intermarriage gave elite Korean writers and cultural producers opportunities to question their complicity with imperialism. Their fictions challenged expected colonial boundaries, creating tensions in identity and hierarchy, and also in narratives of the linear developmental trajectory of modernity. Examining a broad range of writings and films from this period, Imperial Romance maps the colonized subjects' fascination with their colonizers and with moments that allowed them to become active participants in and agents of Japanese and global imperialism.
Focusing on Korean perspectives, Kim uncovers political meaning in the representation of intimacy and emotion between Koreans and Japanese portrayed in print media and films. Imperial Romance disrupts the conventional reading of colonial-period texts as the result of either coercion or the disavowal of colonialism, thereby expanding our understanding of colonial writing practices. The theme of intermarriage gave elite Korean writers and cultural producers opportunities to question their complicity with imperialism. Their fictions challenged expected colonial boundaries, creating tensions in identity and hierarchy, and also in narratives of the linear developmental trajectory of modernity. Examining a broad range of writings and films from this period, Imperial Romance maps the colonized subjects' fascination with their colonizers and with moments that allowed them to become active participants in and agents of Japanese and global imperialism.
Reviews / Votes
Kim provides fresh interpretations of such writers as Yom Sangsop and Yi Kwangsu by offering new readings of the domestic settings in their works, which explore how they redefined and re-created a new kind of social order among their characters.(Choice) Imperial Romance contains a concise analysis of selected Korean literary and media texts that include the themes of intermarriage and romance. Su Yun Kim's Imperial Romance presents the beginnings of an exciting conversation and prepares us to ask further questions regarding race, love, and romance, whilst evaluating not only the past, but the contemporary moment of globalization.
(International Journal of Asian Studies)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Ithaca
United States
Product notice
Paper over boards
Illustrations
10 b&w halftones - 10 Halftones, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
907 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5017-5188-2 (9781501751882)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
11/2020
Cornell University Press
€40.49
Available for download
Person
Su Yun Kim is Assistant Professor of Korean Studies at the University of Hong Kong. She is coeditor of East Asian Transwar Popular Culture.
Content
Introduction: Imperial Romance
1. Civilization and Enlightenment: The Role of the Japanese Home in the Early Colonial Period, 1905-1919
2. Under the Same Roof: A Royal Wedding and a Mixed Family for the Ruling Class
3. Wartime Ideology and the Integration of Korean-Japanese Mixed Families, 1930s
4. Romance and Colonial Universalism
5. Visualizing "International" and Korean-Japanese Marriage in Print Media
Epilogue: Postcolonial Interracial Intimacy
1. Civilization and Enlightenment: The Role of the Japanese Home in the Early Colonial Period, 1905-1919
2. Under the Same Roof: A Royal Wedding and a Mixed Family for the Ruling Class
3. Wartime Ideology and the Integration of Korean-Japanese Mixed Families, 1930s
4. Romance and Colonial Universalism
5. Visualizing "International" and Korean-Japanese Marriage in Print Media
Epilogue: Postcolonial Interracial Intimacy