ENGL 492L-001
Senior Honours Seminar
Christine Kim
Term 1
F, 12:00 PM-2:00 PM
“Seoul Searching: Literature, Desire, and the Korean Diaspora”
The recent Oscars awarded to Parasite and the emergence of the Bonghive, the Booker International prize for translation going to Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, and the social media and sales records set by Kpop bands such as BTS are a few of the ways in which Korea has become highly visible within the global landscape. But the immense popularity of Korean culture seems somewhat perplexing given that only a few decades ago, Korea was a relatively unknown entity for most of the West. And moreover, because the experiences of the Korean diaspora remain relatively underrepresented within Canada and the US. In this course, we will examine Korean diasporic literature for how it depicts topics such as model minority experiences, racialized feelings, the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and class, the legacies of war, colonialism, and imperialism for generations removed from these events, and representations of North Korea and the aftermath of the Cold War. We will also ask what kinds of social, cultural, affective, and economic relations connect the Korean diaspora within Canada and the US to Korea, possibly by turning to other media such as film, television and music. Authors studied may include Chang-rae Lee, Krys Lee, Ins Choi, Cathy Park Hong, Alexander Chee, and others.
