Current Project
Cheap Print and the Alternative Public in Colonial Korea
My current book project examines how cheap print transformed colonial Korean society. The Japanese gradually introduced modern print technology to Korea and allowed Koreans to start their own print operations. The result was the rapid development of colonial vernacular publishing during the period of Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945). The study maintains a focus on vernacular publishing in colonial Korea, but its growth is viewed from the perspective of how the migration of Japanese printers introduced technology from Japan which then allowed Korean printers to compete for niche markets within a largely Japanese publishing world.
This study also examines the growth of ephemera and the import of cheap texts from Japan. Only by considering the broader developments of the entire publishing industry can we see the proper position of the various book forms. Korean literary scholars have for decades attempted to explain how the modern Korean novel appeared in a cheap and disposable format without fully considering the reasons why so little “original” content could be found in a publishing market dominated by cheap translations and adaptations of traditional fiction. While the texts that circulated throughout colonial Korea may not have conformed to nationalist aspirations, this book explores the political implications of cheap print in the formation of colonial subjectivity.
Through a primarily Japanese-language mediated print culture, the book will explain why certain global trends like the spread of proletariat thought and literary modernism dominated the colonial imagination. Ultimately, the book explores the many ways in which colonial print culture shaped notions of colonial governmentality and colonial subjectivity.