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Paper short abstract

This presentation analyzes Kim Namcheon’s novellas to examine how he critiques the East Asian Community discourse that emerged in the midst of the Asia-Pacific War, and discusses Kim’s historical perception in symbolizing the transitional time and space of colonial Korea with an apartment building.

Paper long abstract

Around 1938, as the Second Sino-Japanese War bogged down, discourses became prevalent among Japanese intellectuals that justified the war as a means to liberate Asia from Western modern oppression and to establish the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" under the Japanese leadership. Since the rhetoric of the "Greater East Asia Community" promised a future of mutual prosperity for all participating ethnic groups, it was seized upon by certain intellectuals in colonial Korea as well. They lent their support to the war effort, framing it as a transformative opportunity for Korea to transcend its colonial identity and achieve a new status alongside Japan.

This presentation examines how the “East Asian Community” discourse is critiqued in Kim Namcheon’s series of novellas, "Management" (Gyeong-yeong, 1940) and "Barley" (Maek, 1941). Set in an apartment building in Seoul, which was emerged in the 1930s as a new form of urban housing for single residents, the series juxtaposes two contrasting views on the “East Asian Community” discourse. Specifically, it explores the Japanese philosopher Koyama Iwao's pluralistic view of Eastern history through dialogues between the female protagonist who works as the building’s manager and the two male characters who move in.

Kim Namcheon, who was active in the proletarian cultural movement in colonial Korea, established his literary career following the movement’s dissolution in the mid-1930s. In this series of novellas, Kim employs the theme of Tenkō (ideological conversion) within a judicial setting to reveal how the “East Asian Community” discourse functioned coercively in colonial Korea. He exposes the realization that the discourse, which many Korean intellectuals supported for its promise of equal coexistence, was ultimately a deception.

Following the above analysis, I will proceed to compare the structure of the apartment building in the novellas with that of Yamatojuku, a rehabilitation center for ideological offenders where Kim entered shortly after the series' publication. By examining the center’s apartment-like structure as a space representing totalitarian thought control, I will discuss Kim’s historical consciousness in choosing the apartment building as a site that symbolizes the transitional time and space of colonial Korea in the midst of the Asia-Pacific War.