Lamentation as History: Narratives by Koreans in Japan, 1965-2000This book examines narratives by and about the Koreans in Japan from the mid-1960s through 2000. In so doing, it traces the emergence and evolution of a discourse of this group as a minority community within Japan. Koreans are the only significant postcolonial population to have been subjects of a non-Western empire, yet this is the first full-length study in English of their literature. While scholars have tended to treat literary and political developments as separate historical processes, this book proposes that the two are inextricably interwoven, and that only by examining them together will we be able adequately to understand identity, a concept so fraught and yet so essential to modern individuals—whether members of a minority or not. Because of this approach, the author is able to consider issues such as the importance of life stories for political purposes and the place of gender, both metaphorically and in reality, for ethnic self-definition. The book thus engages in discussions already under way among those interested in minority and postcolonial identity elsewhere in the world. |
Contents
Mother Korea | 21 |
Uncircumcised Ethnicity | 54 |
Ikaino the Homeland | 91 |
Copyright | |
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Lamentation as History: Narratives by Koreans in Japan, 1965-2000 Melissa L. Wender Limited preview - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
abuse activists Akutagawa prize argues bungaku bungei Ch'oi chapter character colonial comfort women critics discrimination ethnic fact father feel fiction gaze gender girl Hitachi homeland human Ibid ideology Ikaino immigrants Japanese citizenship Japanese Literature Japanese society Kankoku kayagum Kim Ch'ang-saeng Kim Hui-ro Kim's Kin Kakuei Kin's Kobayashi Kobayashi Hideo Koku Korean citizenship Korean community Korean culture Korean language Korean Literature Korean women Koreans in Japan Kyōko language literary living meaning memory Minzoku modern mother movement narrative narrator Nihon oppression Osaka pain Pak's Pang-ne poem political postwar protagonist rape references Resident Koreans Ri Kaisei Ri's sabetsu Sang-il says sense sexual shamanism Shōwa Sōren South Korea speak story stutter Su-ri Su-yong Sumi Taiko Takeda Seiji tells term tion Tokyo trauma trial University Press victimization voice woman words writing Yi Yang-ji Yōko Yu Miri Zainichi Chōsenjin Zainichi Koreans