Description

Join this virtual event via Zoom: https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/86914380300
Meeting ID: 869 1438 0300
Passcode: 464253

With the launch of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Japan’s colonies saw the full-scale launch of kōminka (imperialization) policies designed to turn the colonized into loyal subjects of the emperor. In this book talk, Christina Yi will explore the central role kokugo (national language) ideology played in the articulation and promotion of imperial identity during the latter years of Japan’s colonial rule, exploring how and why “Korean” literature was repositioned within a larger Japanese language canon. Although it is often understood that the kōminka movement introduced a new paradigm of the “imperial subject,” who might be included in this category varied according to class, gender, ethnicity, and place.

This presentation will elaborate on this point through a close comparative analysis of Kim Sŏngmin’s 1936 novella Hantō no geijutsukatachi (Artists of the Peninsula) and its 1941 film adaptation Hantō no haru (Spring on the Peninsula; dir. Yi Pyŏng-il).

CHRISTINA YI is Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Literature at the University of British Columbia. She is a specialist of modern Japanese-language literature and culture, with a particular focus on issues of postcoloniality, language ideology, genre, and cultural studies. Her first monograph, Colonizing Language: Cultural Production and Language Politics in Modern Japan and Korea, was published by Columbia University Press in 2018. She was also the co-editor for a special feature on zainichi (resident) Korean literature and film for Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture 12 (2019).

Description

The Korean Office for Research and Education (KORE) at York University and the Centre for the Study of Korea (CSK) at the University of Toronto are inviting you to the presentation by Prof. Sophia Seung-Yoon Lee (Chung-Ang University) on February 25, 2021 (Thursday), 4 to 5:30 pm (EST).   

Korea’s platform labor market expanded considerably in a short period of time and there is also a diversity of platform labor. The purpose of this talk is to understand the operation of the Korean platform labor market and how the forms for work mismatch with Korean social security system. The study categorizes platform companies and platform labor in the Korean platform labor market, and examines differences and commonalities in their labor processes through case studies on delivery platforms, domestic service platforms, and freelance platforms. The differences according to the type of platform labor are as follows. First, the delivery platform was mainly mediated by four-way relations, and the domestic services and freelance platforms by three-way relationships. Second, the intensity of labour control and involvement of platform labor of platform companies was strong in the order of delivery platform, house service platform and freelance platform. Third, the differences in social security experiences and needs were mainly found in industrial accident insurance. The analysis confirms that the mismatch between platform labor and social security system does not only come from the vague employment relationship of platform workers, but rather the differences among the types of platform work need to be considered in discussing social security reform to solve the mismatch problem.

Sophia Seung-Yoon Lee received her DPhil (PhD) in Social Policy from the University of Oxford (UK) with her thesis on A Comparative study of East Asian welfare states and nonstandard workers. Her research interests are East Asian welfare state and labour markets, precarious work, basic income and institutionalism. Some of her selected publications are “Institutional legacy of state corporatism in de-industrial labour markets: a comparative study of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, Socio-economic Review (2016),” “Precarious Workers in South Korea, 한국의 불안정 노동자 Seoul: Humanitas, co-authored (2017),” “Precarious Elderly Workers in Post-Industrial South Korea, Journal of Contemporary Asia (2018).”  She was a member of the 4th National Pension Reform Committee of Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare and currently the vice chairperson of Youth Policy Coordination Committee of Rep. of Korea.   

This event is organized by Hae Yeon Choo (University of Toronto) and is presented by the Korean Office for Research and Education (KORE) at York University which is funded by the Academy of Korean Studies, and the Centre for the Study of Korea at the University of Toronto.  

For more information: kore@yorku.ca || https://kore.info.yorku.ca/calendar/

Description

Transcendence has been largely mobilized in formulating a modern nation-state in Korea. In this talk the presenter looks into how religion is constructed in relation with the development of secular modernity in Korea from a perspective of circulatory history. The category of religion appeared in Korea in processes through which East Asia was incorporated into the globalized modern world. Unlike those in China and Japan, a considerable portion of Korea’s enlightenment elites and major nationalists recalled spiritual societies to the making of the Korean nation in the globalized East. Such formation of religion in modern Korea was greatly attributed to the colonial and postcolonial politics of the secular nation-building. Rather than condemned as a symbol of feudalism, irrationality and imperialism, religion was largely thought of as an alternative venue of communication for resisting colonialism, contributing to national enlightenment as well as overcoming the nation’s geopolitical limit in the Far East.

Dr. Kyuhoon Cho is a research associate in the Centre for the Study of Korea at the University of Toronto. Previously he taught at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul National University and Nanyang Technological University. His research and teaching focus on Korean religions and heritage in the context of globalization.