Assimilating Seoul: Japanese Rule and the Politics of Public Space in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945Assimilating 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
The Uneven Spaces of | 22 |
Namsans Shintō Shrines | 62 |
8a Geisha in shrine procession | 69 |
Kisaeng in shrine procession top boy scouts carrying portable | 75 |
Ioa Korean procession | 88 |
Colonial Expositions | 92 |
11a Building One on illustrated exhibition grounds | 100 |
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Assimilating Seoul: Japanese Rule and the Politics of Public Space in ... Todd A. Henry Limited preview - 2014 |
Assimilating Seoul: Japanese Rule and the Politics of Public Space in ... Todd A. Henry Limited preview - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
aimed Amaterasu Asia-Pacific War assimilation capital celebrations Cho-sen Chongno Chōsen Choson chungsim ŭro city planning city's civic colonial Korea colonial officials colonized population cultural disease display halls early colonial elites Empire ethnic event example exhibition expatriate exposition festival Gate Government-General building Han Empire Han'guk hygienic modernity Ilche imperial house Insa-dong Itō Hirobumi Japa Japan Japanese rule Japanese settlers jinja Keijo Keijo-’s kisaeng Korea Shrine Korean Kyongbok Palace Kyongsong late colonial leaders Maeil sinbo March First Movement metropole munhwa Namsan nationalist neighborhood Nihon nippo northern village nyŏndae okeru organizers palace grounds peninsula percent PhD diss planners police political practices promote public spaces residents reverence rituals sahoe sanitary Seoul Shrine Sept Shinto Shokuminchi shrine visits Singminji South spiritual symbolic Taehan tion Tokyo Tonga Tonga ilbo tosi University Press urban reforms visitors wartime Yasukuni Shrine Yi Sun-sin yon'gu