While most studies on Korean nationalism centre on textual analysis, Aesthetic Constructions of Korean Nationalism offers a different approach. It looks at expositions, museums and the urban built environment at particular moments in both colonial and postcolonial eras and analyses their discursive relations in the construction of Korean nationalism. By linking concepts of visual spectacle, urban space and governmentality, this book explores how such notions made the nation imaginable to the public in both the past and the present; how they represented a new modality of seeing for the state and contributed to the shaping of collective identities in colonial and postcolonial Korea. The author further examines how their different modes were associated with the change in governmentality in Korea. In addressing these questions, the book interprets the politics behind the culture of displays and shows both the continuity and the transformation of spectacles as a governing technology in twentieth-century Korea. Aesthetic Constructions of Korean Nationalism is a significant contribution to a study of the politics of visual culture in colonial and postcolonial Korea. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of Korean Studies, Culture and Heritage Studies and Asian Studies.

This handbook presents a comprehensive survey of the formation and transformation of nationalism in 15 East and Southeast Asian countries. Written by a team of international scholars from different backgrounds and disciplines, this volume offers new perspectives on studying Asian history, society, culture, and politics, and provides readers with a unique lens through which to better contextualise and understand the relationships between countries within East and Southeast Asia, and between Asia and the world. It highlights the latest developments in the field and contributes to our knowledge and understanding of nationalism and nation building. Comprehensive and clearly written, this book examines a diverse set of topics that include theoretical considerations on nationalism and internationalism; the formation of nationalism and national identity in the colonial and postcolonial eras; the relationships between traditional culture, religion, ethnicity, education, gender, technology, sport, and nationalism; the influence of popular culture on nationalism; and politics, policy, and national identity. It illustrates how nationalism helped to draw the borders between the nations of East and Southeast Asia, and how it is re-emerging in the twenty-first century to shape the region and the world into the future. The Routledge Handbook of Nationalism in East and Southeast Asia is essential reading for those interested in and studying Asian history, Social and Cultural history, and modern history.

Using a comparative, interdisciplinary approach, Nationalism in Asia analyzes currents of nationalism in five contemporary Asian societies: China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea. Explores the ways in which nationalism is expressed, embraced, challenged, and resisted in contemporary China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea using a comparative, interdisciplinary approach Provides an important trans-national and trans-regional analysis by looking at five countries that span Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia Features comparative analysis of identity politics, democracy, economic policy, nation branding, sports, shared trauma, memory and culture wars, territorial disputes, national security and minorities Offers an accessible, thematic narrative written for non-specialists, including a detailed and up-to-date bibliography Gives readers an in-depth understanding of the ramifications of nationalism in these countries for the future of Asia

In the decades following the 1997 Asian economic crisis, South Korea sought segyehwa (globalization). Evidence of this is no more evident than in the country’s capital, Seoul, where urban development has been central to making the city a global hub and not just the centre of the national economy. However, recent development projects differ from those of the past in that they no longer focus solely on economic efficiency, but on the deployment of a new urban aesthetics. As Jieheerah Yun reveals in Globalizing Seoul: The City’s Cultural and Urban Change, the pursuit of globalization and the rebranding of Seoul’s image from hard industrial city to soft cultural city have shaped the urban development of the city. Following a brief urban history of Seoul, she focuses on two key themes. In the first, how globalization has contributed to refashioning Korean traditions, she analyzes the policies and actions to preserve Korean folk houses and pre-industrial street layouts, looking in detail at the Bukchon and Insadong areas of the city. Her second theme is an examination of migration and the generation of new minority neighbourhoods amidst the segyehwa policies and the state’s efforts to build a multicultural society. In detailed case studies of the redevelopment of Dongdaemun Market as part of rebranding Seoul as the ‘world design capital’ and of the Itaewon area as both a Special Tourist Zone and a Global Cultural Zone, she shows how multi-ethnic neighbourhoods are threatened by lack of consideration for economic justice and housing provision.

This new edited volume of critical essays examines designs for modern living in Asia between 1945 and 1990. Focusing particularly on the post-World War II and postcolonial years, this book advances multidisciplinary knowledge on approaches to and designs for modern living. Developed from extensive primary research and case studies, each essay illuminates commonalities and particularities of the trajectories of Modernism and notions of modernity, their translation and manifestation in life across Asia through design. Authors address everyday negotiations and experiences of being modern by studying exhibitions, architecture, modern interiors, printed ephemera, literary discourses, healthy living movements and transnational networks of modern designers. They examine processes of exchange between people, institutions and with governments, in and across Asia, as well as with the USA and countries in Western Europe. This book highlights the ways in which the production and discourses of modern design were underscored by economic advancement and modernization processes, and fuelled by aesthetic debates on modern design. Critically exploring design for modern living in Asia, this book offers fresh perspectives on Modernism to students and scholars.

Modern Asian Design provides a comprehensive introduction to the development of Asian design in the modern period, both tracing historical threads and offering a theoretical framework within which to chart the history of design in Asia. Rather than a singular “Asian history”, this book presents a series of studies centred on trade routes, colonial relationships, regional networks and cross-cultural exchanges. Modern Asian Design builds on existing resources beyond design history in an effort to map the field, focusing particularly on relations between Asia and the West and also across Asian design cultures. Opening with a brief overview of trade and exchange networks in the 17th and 18th centuries, the bulk of this study comprises analysis of the development of modern design in Asia during the later 19th and early 20th centuries, a period of rapid modernisation. The book's final two chapters bring these central ideas into a contemporary and highly relevant context.

A Representation of Nationhood in the Museum examines how the National Museum of Korea, as a national repository of material culture and the state’s premier exhibition facility, has shaped and been shaped by Korean nationalism. Exploring the processes by which the museum has discovered and interpreted material culture, using concepts of ethnic nationalism in the historical and political contexts of South Korean society, the book analyses how this nationalist interpretation has regulated South Koreans’ understanding of their material culture. Issues considered include: cultural and political relations with China; Japanese colonial rule, cultural imperialism and its legacy; the division of Korea since 1945; the Korean War and nation building since liberation in 1945; and domestic political upheavals, including military coups in 1961 and in 1979. Demonstrating that authoritarian regimes’ emphasis on the promotion of national unity drove national museums to establish national identity through material culture, Jang argues that international political and diplomatic factors also affect the process of the formation of national identity in a specific political context. Concerning itself with issues such as the relationship between politics and identity, museums and authoritarian regimes, this book should be essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students in museum studies, nationalism studies, Asian studies and history departments.