L007: Domestic Spaces in Korea: Reconfiguring Historical Narratives

Organizer(s)

• 

  Na Sil Heo

  University of Pennsylvania, United States

Chair(s)

• OF

  Olga Fedorenko

  Seoul National University, Republic of Korea

Paper Presenter(s)

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  Yu Jung Lee

  Yonsei University, Republic of Korea
• SK

  Sunho Ko

  York University, Canada
• 

  Na Sil Heo

  University of Pennsylvania, United States
• 

  Heon-mok Jung

  Academy of Korean Studies, Republic of Korea

Discussant(s)

• OF

  Olga Fedorenko

  Seoul National University, Republic of Korea

Session Abstract: How could domestic spaces serve as a new methodological approach to narrating histories? Spanning from the late 19^th century to the contemporary, papers in this panel locate various spaces of domesticity – hotels for foreign visitors, urban gardens, children’s rooms, and apartment complexes – in order to offer diverse ways of reconfiguring historical narratives, expand our definition of historical actors, and bridge conversations with fields beyond Korean studies. In particular, shifting our scholarly gaze from the state to domesticity enables us to ask new questions of gender, race, class, and individual’s relations to state power. Collectively, the four papers seek to raise new questions in our approaches to historical studies of Korea and to situate Korea within the various transnational contexts that shaped and framed existing and novel ways of understanding domesticity.

Presentations:

• Temporary Domesticity: Creating Home Away From Home in Korea from the 1880s through the 1910s
  

  Paper Presenter: Yu Jung Lee – Yonsei University
• The Dreams of Male Gardeners: Domestic Gardens on the Korean Homefront, 1941-1945
  

  Paper Presenter: Sunho Ko – York University
• Child-Centered Dream Homes: Politics of Independence and Privacy in Cold War Korea, 1950s–1960s
  

  Paper Presenter: Na Sil Heo – University of Pennsylvania
• From the Commodity to the Community: Imagination and Realization of an Alternative Housing Model in Korea
  

  Paper Presenter: Heon-mok Jung – Academy of Korean Studies