[KS] Friday, May 2 at UC Berkeley (Todd Henry): After "Assimilating Seoul": Ch’anggyŏng Garden and the Post-Colonial Remaking of Seoul’s Public Spaces

[Center for Korean Studies]

*The Center for Korean Studies*

*University of California, Berkeley*

*Cordially invites you to our final  colloquium of Spring 2014*





*[image: Inline image 1] *


*After "Assimilating Seoul": Ch’anggyŏng Garden and the Post-Colonial
Remaking of Seoul’s Public Spaces*

Colloquium: Center for Korean Studies | *May 2 | 4 p.m. *| Institute of
East Asian Studies (2223 Fulton, 6th
Floor)<http://www.berkeley.edu/map/googlemap/?b2223>,
Conference Room


Speaker: *Todd A.
Henry*<http://history.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/henry-todd.html>,
Assistant Professor of History, UC San
Diego<http://history.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/henry-todd.html>

Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies (CKS) <http://ieas.berkeley.edu/cks/>


The title of this talk is meant to signal two related topics for
discussion. The first refers to my new book, "Assimilating Seoul: Japanese
Rule and The Politics of Public Space in Colonial Korea, 1910-1945"
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014). The introductory part of
the talk reviews the central argument of that book – namely, that public
space functioned as “contact zones” wherein varying projects of
assimilation were both implanted by state officials and contested by their
non-elite users. The second part of the talk extends this story beyond the
liberation of 1945 and into the history of South Korea. In this context,
the title refers to the project of recasting the capital city as a
capitalist and anti-communist focus of post-colonial politics. After
briefly examining the post-liberation strategy of erasure, the fate of
Namsan’s Shintō Shrines, I turn to the more common strategy of
decolonization, which involved creatively “recycling” the city’s palace
grounds before ultimately restoring them. To trace this decolonizing
strategy, I explore the fate of Ch’anggyŏng Garden, whose popular zoo,
park, museum and other recreational facilities persisted long after 1945.
Meanwhile, the early architects of South Korea creatively re-used this site
for new national purposes, including to memorialize anti-communist patriots
and to showcase the country’s infant industries. It was only over the next
three decades that the overlapping functions of this public space were
separated into distinct sites, each capable of carrying out a specific role
in re-subjectifying the citizenry.


Event Contact: cks at berkeley.edu, 510-642-5674


Event Contact: cks at berkeley.edu, 510-642-5674

For updates on upcoming events, please visit:

CKS Website: http://ieas.berkeley.edu/cks/

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