The Institute for Korean Studies presents:
"Translation as Cultural Decolonization: North Korea's 'Selected World Literature' Project, 1960-1967"
Kyeong Hee-Choi
University of Chicago
Abstract: Prevailing colonial and postcolonial studies in the West have afforded little space for addressing the complexities of Korea's colonial experience, subsequent national division, and their consequences. Addressing an under-explored area, this study investigates a case of postcolonial reckoning with colonial legacies wherein building literary infrastructure through translation served as an institutional framework for cultural decolonization. The focus is North Korea's state-sponsored "Selected World Literature" project from 1960 to 1967. By analyzing the material and human resources devoted to this systematic literary initiative, the research reveals how curating and translating world literature became a means for North Korea to address colonial cultural deficits within the broader socialist revolutionary project; it argues for a dimension of postcoloniality often overshadowed in conventional understandings of both translation and North Korea. This presentation draws upon a collaborative work with Moon-seok Jang (Professor of Korean Literature, Kyung Hee University).
For more information and to register visit the East Asian Studies Centers events page.
