식민지 지식인의 판타지로서의 성, 사랑과 여성 - 근대 한국인의 상해 기행문을 중심으로 -

Abstract

Koreans' travel notes about Shanghai-particularly in the 1920s and 1930s-clearly recorded the changes in Koreans' emotions and cognition in the urban setting. Writings about women, which account for a large proportion, focused on feminine corporeality in the social public domain, indicating that the material desires brought about by capitalism merged with Koreans' longing for exotic cultures, and morphed into sexual desire for women. Based on the absence of female characters enjoying a subjective voice and an equal status to men's, the authoritative male discourses expressed the tropes of "death of women" and "punishment of women" by objectifying women. Meanwhile, Koreans expressed their polarized modern feelings, sexual desires, and modern desires by centering on women's social activities. However, modern female intellectuals also suffered alienation when integrating into the Western value system. Therefore, this paper aims to reveal women's repeated exposure and distortion in the Shanghai concession, where multiple values coexisted in the cracks between the reality of capitalism and the modernity value system and in the eyes of both westerners and domestic intellectuals. Additionally, it reflects on the idea that Koreans also played a role as participants and copartners in the contradictory alienation process of being reborn as modern people.