Picturing Korea 185

This course explores the role of modern visual media in shaping geopolitical, cultural, and historical imaginations of Korea during the last hundred years. Drawing examples from photographs, films, and literature, produced in and outside Korea, the course aims to consider the idea of "Korea" primarily via images constructed through transnational cultural networks. Consideration will be given to the relationship between visual media and cultural memory. We will think in particular about the ways in which globally accessible visual media such as photography and film narrate the key local sites of contested memories of colonization, war, and political violence.