2020년 한국학(Korean Study)의 위치, 그리고 글로벌 한국학? -권나영 저, 김진규· 인아영· 정기인 역, 『친밀한 제국–한국과 일본의 협력과 식민지 근대성』, 소명출판, 2020

Abstract

Intimate Empire focuses on the ‘intimacy’ that was disavowed in Korea and Japan after liberation, focusing on bilingual writers and their works located in the contact zone between Korea and Japan. While insisting on overcoming the existing dichotomy of collaboration and resistance, this book reconstructs the time by using theoretical perspectives such as the conundrum of representation, colonial abject, and colonial kitsch. Although the approach from the theoretical level fully utilizes the trend of post colonialism from the 90s to the 2000s, it remains regrettable that it does not sufficiently reflect the trend of changes in the Korean academic world after the 2000s. It is difficult to say that the intimacy contained in the headline of the book sufficiently dominates the entire book. The case of Yi Kwangsu(1892 -1950?) presented at the beginning leaves a hint of strong intimacy, but the specific examples later are closer to reaffirming the colonial hierarchy rather than intimacy. However, it seems that the concepts of colonial abject and colonial kitsch are used properly, and some points beyond the structure of collaboration and resistance that the author argued are also confirmed. Some differences are also found in the English and Korean versions of the book. There is a regret that the mixed situation of Korean and Japanese, which can be confirmed in the English version, and the difficulty and ‘intimacy’ of the bilingual situation placed before and after the slash, do not appear in the Korean version. Also, it can be said that it is fly in the ointment that the terms of major post-colonial studies have not been translated. It is natural that Intimate Empire has been positioned mainly in the relationship between Korean (literary) and American Korean academia, but on the other hand, there is a concern that it blurs Korean studies outside the United States and North America. When considering the expansion or future of Korean Studies, the existence and possibilities outside the US and English-speaking countries should be considered together.