*Please RSVP by October 24*
Lecture by: Michael D. Shin (Historian of Modern Korea, Robinson College, Cambridge)
Yi Gwangsu (1892-1950) was by far the most popular novelist in colonial Korea in the 1920s. However, his works from that period have received little scholarly attention partly because about half of his output was melodramas that were considered to be nothing more than low-brow escapism. It has been virtually forgotten that Yi’s Rebirth was the first full-length novel to feature the so-called “modern girl” as well as one of the first to be set against the backdrop of the March First Movement of 1919. This talk discusses how the novel used the conventions of melodrama to offer a sophisticated critique of colonial capitalism.
Michael D. Shin is a historian of modern Korea at Robinson College, Cambridge. He is the author of Korean National Identity under Japanese Colonial Rule (Routledge, 2018), the editor and co-author of Korean History in Maps (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and the editor and co-translator of Everyday Life in Joseon-Era Korea (Brill, 2014).
This event is free and open to the public, wheelchair accessible. For more info, please contact Professor Yoon Jeong Oh
