‘통쾌’에서 ‘명랑’까지 : 식민지 문화와 감성의 정치학

Abstract

This paper aims to look into the pattern of how sensibility, which is represented as being ”keen pleasure” and “cheeriness”, forms the body and regulates the inner world of people under a colony. In general, the status of “colonization” is symbolized by “sorrow” and “pathos”, but various emotions are encouraged and cultivated or suppressed or excluded owing to the weakening of nationalistic ideology, the introduction of modern capital, and the reinforcement of a fascist system. During this process, “sorrow” and “pathos” are considered as a nationalistic emotion to avoid or sometimes a feminine emotion is criticized for being a girlish sentiment. This study focuses on the emotions of joy that are produced en masse or cultivated rather than focusing on discourse about criticized and suppressed emotions. For instance, the emotion of “keen pleasure” appears according to the introduction of modern pop culture during the 1920s, and it is imagined as an emotion of revenge and subversion, which partly resolves nationalistic heartburning; however, it is shown to be produced en masse amidst the story grammar of the exposure of subversion that uncovers the background of reality. Also, as “cheeriness” was becoming a sort of code in the totalistic discourse that cultivates the human type appropriate for the new system, it was being used as a significance of privilege during the later Japanese colonial rule. Both two emotions are emphasized in pop culture and national culture that was emphasized and mass-produced by colonial narrative. Ultimately, it is found that they are being formulated in the direction of making individual emotions to be sensible and totalistic rather than making them to be differentiated and pluralistic. Specifically, these emotions are mediated with a desire to avoid and run away from the colonial reality in imagination; therefore, it is worth taking a look into how they affect the narrative paper mold of a colony hereafter.