김광주 소설에 나타난 탈경계의 의미-1930년대 상하이 체험을 중심으로

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the transnational aspect of Kwang-ju Kim’s novels in the 1930s and to examine the existence and meaning of the transnational subject in the era of imperialist globalization. Previous studies have been proceeding in two major directions. One is the tendency of research to evaluate his works from the point of view of extension of Korean modern literature. In this case, Kim is regarded as a writer who shows a type of ‘Shanghai Diaspora’ and a disillusionment of Shanghai's duality and pseudo-revolutionaries, a writer who has expressed his strong national consciousness through his nostalgia for his homeland. The other is the studies emphasizing the locality (urbanity) of Shanghai while criticizing the existing researches to be overly ideological or political. In this case, the double-sidedness of the international city Shanghai is superimposed on the works, and Kim, Kwang-ju's novels remain in the texts showing the hybridity and diversity of the city of Shanghai. This paper focuses on Kim, Kwang-ju's literary character, which was based on the achievements of previous researches that was attempted in the direction of nationalism or de-nationalism, but was overlooked in their research. In the 1930s Kim, Kwang-ju's novels were directed to the Joseon society and the Koreans in Shanghai, but in his works 'Joseon / Korean' did’t function as a positive sign of national independence or national character. It is an interesting point that they could not completely escape the framework of the Koreans in that they were Koreans and use Korean language, but they had some kind of opacity that could not be explained by the single ethnic frame of Korea. If the globalization of modern society is positively driven by transnational actors and networks, transnational actors of Kim, Kwang-ju's novels were the heroes who had to face the nation and the transnational reality only by the power of the individual without the horizons of the nation/state. His works dealt with the way human beings were thrown into the transnational contexts and the various human conditions they pursued. In that sense, the meaning of his works contain a point comparable to today's reality.