Healing Historical Trauma in South Korean Film and Literature / Chungmoo Choi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Choi, Chungmoo, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Psychic trauma in literature.

Reconciliation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (236 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

London : Routledge, 2020.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Through South Korean filmic and literary texts, this book explores affect and ethics in the healing of historical trauma, as alternatives to the measures of transitional justice in want of national unity. Historians and legal practitioners who deal with transitional justice agree that the relationship between historiography and justice seeking is contested: this book reckons with this question of how much truth-telling from a violent past will lead to healing, forgiving, forgetting and finally overcoming resentment. Nuanced interpretations of South Korean filmic and literary texts are featured, including Park Chan-wook's Oldboy, Bong Joon-ho's Mother and literary texts of Han Kang and Ch'oe Yun, whilst also engaging the ethical and political philosophy of Levinas, Hannah Arendt, and others. Also offered is new and extensive research into the hitherto hidden history of thousands of North Korean war orphans who were sent to Eastern European countries for care. Grappling with the evils of history, the films and novels examined herein find their ultimate themes in compassion, hospitality, humility and solidarity of the wounded. Healing Historical Trauma in South Korean Film and Literature will appeal to students and scholars of film, comparative literature, cultural studies and Korean studies more broadly.

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Series Information

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Table of contents

Preface

1 Evil, banality and apathy

The weight of silence

The urban purgatory and the interregnum

The tormented phantom soul

A duel in a cathedral confronting radical evil

Notes

Bibliography

2 The power of humility and compassion

Resentment vs. ressentiment

The unfinished grief

Forgiving the unforgivable in Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine

Substitution for the unrepentant: Lee Chang-dong's Poetry

3 Ghostly apparitions and the face

The sorrow of the remnants and the politics of pity

An inoperative community of healing: Lim Chul-woo's One-Hundred Year Inn

Ghostly apparitions: Han Kang's The Boy Is Coming

The face: Ch'oe Yun's "There a Petal Silently Falls"

Deliverance from guilt: the girl's story

The transformative power of the weak: the man's story

Hospitality: the urban elite activists vs. the suffering man

4 Bio-nationalism and solidarity of the wounded

Cold buckwheat noodle soup and bio-nationalism

The nation trouble and maternity: widows and queen bees of Kang Kyong-ae and Yi Sang

The national mother crushed between hyper-masculinity and anarchism

A utopic vision: Hwang Sŏg-yŏng's The Old Garden

An anarchist vision: Bong Joon-ho's Mother

Solidarity of the wounded: Chu Sang-mi's The Children Sent to Poland

The North Korean war orphans

Solidarity of the wounded

Index.

Notes:

Description based on: online resource; title from PDF information screen (Routledge, viewed December 29, 2022).

ISBN:

0-429-50744-5

0-429-01734-0

9780429507441

OCLC:

1224162196