(Routledge Studies in Modern History) 1st Edition
by Hannah Amaris Roh (Author)
One of the first philosophical approaches to the study of Korea’s ethnic nationalism, Christianity, the Sovereign Subject, and Ethnic Nationalism in Colonial Korea
traces the impact of Christianity in the formation of Korean national
identity, outlining the metaphysical origins of the concept of the
sovereign subject.
This monograph takes a
meta-historical approach and engages the moral questions of Korean
historiography amid the fraught politics of narrating colonialism and
the postcolonial period. Indebted to Jacques Derrida’s philosophy of
deconstruction and his framework of "hauntology," this monograph unpacks
the ethical consequences of ethnic nationalism, exploring how Western
metaphysics has haunted imaginations of freedom in colonial Korea. While
most studies of modern Korean nationalism and (post)colonialism have
taken a cultural, literary, or social scientific approach, this book
draws on the thought of Jacques Derrida to offer an innovative
intellectual history of Korea’s colonial period. By deconstructing the
metaphysical claims of turn-of-the-century Protestant missionaries and
early modern Korean intellectuals, the book showcases the relevance of
Derrida’s philosophical method in the study of modern Korean history.
This is a must read for scholars interested in Derrida, historiography, and Korean history.
