Presentiments: Towards Modern Korean Literature

This course problematizes the ideas of "modern" and "literature" which were no more than hypotheses in turn-of-the-20th-century Korea. We trace the aesthetic and intellectual transformations in lineage novels, hybrid novels that test the boundaries of traditional form, sinsosol, essays, and early textbooks of Korean literature. As a result, rather than viewing the emergence of modern literature in Korea as a self-certain trajectory within the teleological timeline of the nation-state, we note the zones of ambiguity, hybridity, and dialog around it.