연속/단절의 이분법적 시각을 넘어 -정종현의 『제국의 기억과 전유』에 대한 몇 가지 물음-

Abstract

The transformation of social structures and the process of cultural formation in the 1940s in Korea, by and large, have been understood from the perspective of ‘discontinuity’. As symbolized by the terms ‘Dark Age’ and ‘liberation period’, the 1940s are usually divided into two stages before and after August 15, 1945: the imperial-colonial period and the decolonized-Cold War period. That being said, the country's political, institutional, and cultural experiences during the colonial period in fact exerted considerable influence on the formation of society and culture and the restructuring of individuals' identities after liberation. Past experiences and memories of the colonial period, which were either overcome/rejected or refracted/transformed liberation, became one of the core dynamics in the formation of the country's society and culture. In light of this, fact, it is essential to view the entire 1940s as existing on the same horizon―i.e., from the perspective of continuity―in order to examine the multi-layered and hybrid phenomena in the formation process of the country's society and culture after liberation. However, understanding of Korea's society, culture, and literature of the 1940s beyond the dichotomy of ‘continuity’ and ‘discontinuity’ can be achieved only through exact and meticulous exploration of the process whereby identity was formed among heterogeneous and schizophrenic individuals or through rigidly studying the historical transformation in the emergence of modern Korean literature.