Assimilating Seoul : Japanese rule and the politics of public space in colonial Korea, 1910-1945 / Todd A. Henry.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Henry, Todd A., 1972-

Series:

Asia Pacific modern ; 12.

Asia Pacific modern ; 12

Asia Pacific Modern ; 12

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Public spaces--Social aspects--Korea (South)--Seoul--History--20th century.

Public spaces.

Koreans--Cultural assimilation--Korea (South)--Seoul--History--20th century.

Koreans.

Seoul (Korea)--History--20th century.

Seoul (Korea).

Seoul (Korea)--Ethnic relations--History--20th century.

Korea--History--Japanese occupation, 1910-1945.

Korea.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (320 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, California : University of California Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Assimilating Seoul, the first book-length study written in English about Seoul during the colonial period, challenges conventional nationalist paradigms by revealing the intersection of Korean and Japanese history in this important capital. Through microhistories of Shinto festivals, industrial expositions, and sanitation campaigns, Todd A. Henry offers a transnational account that treats the city's public spaces as "contact zones," showing how residents negotiated pressures to become loyal, industrious, and hygienic subjects of the Japanese empire. Unlike previous, top-down analyses, this ethnographic history investigates modalities of Japanese rule as experienced from below. Although the colonial state set ambitious goals for the integration of Koreans, Japanese settler elites and lower-class expatriates shaped the speed and direction of assimilation by bending government initiatives to their own interests and identities. Meanwhile, Korean men and women of different classes and generations rearticulated the terms and degree of their incorporation into a multiethnic polity. Assimilating Seoul captures these fascinating responses to an empire that used the lure of empowerment to disguise the reality of alienation.

Contents:

Frontmatter

List of Illustrations

Note on Place Names

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction. Assimilation and Space: Toward an Ethnography of Japanese Rule

1. Constructing Keijō: The Uneven Spaces of a Colonial Capital

2. Spiritual Assimilation: Namsan's Shinto- Shrines and Their Festival Celebrations

3. Material Assimilation: Colonial Expositions on the Kyŏngbok Palace Grounds

4. Civic Assimilation: Sanitary Life in Neighborhood Keijō

5. Imperial Subjectification: The Collapsing Spaces of a Wartime City

Epilogue. After Empire's Demise: The Postcolonial Remaking of Seoul's Public Spaces

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780520293151

0520293150

9780520958418

0520958411

OCLC:

868609516