Subject Area: Japanese Studies
This course can also be studied in the following specialisation: Korean Studies & Asian Studies

This course focuses on the relations between Japan and Korea from the late 19th century and the role of Japanese colonialism in the development of Korean cultural nationalism. You will examine the context of Japan’s “opening” of Korea in 1876, including the intellectual frameworks by which Korean and Japanese thinkers defined cultural unity; debates among Korea’s cultural conservatives and those who advocated taking Japan as a model for social and cultural change; Japanese readings of Korean culture’s “defects” and early support for Korean self-strengthening movements; the relationship between Japanese colonial policies and Koreans’ responses after annexation in 1910; the interrelationship between the Japanese policy of “cultural rule” and the Korean response of “cultural [nationalist] movements” after 1919; and the development of Korean cultural nationalism through the colonial period (1910-1945). You will conclude by critically examining the continuing impact of Japanese colonialism on the construction of cultural memory in contemporary Korea.