Colloquia

AATK COLLOQUIUM – Spring 2025

The Cold War Recalled: Literature and Visual Art in Divided Korea

Friday April 11 2025, 8:00-9:40 PM EST (UTC-5)

Virtual via Zoom (Open to Public)

The Zoom link will only be sent to the registered participants as the event approaches.

Please register HERE.

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Colloquium Committee: Hyo Sang Lee (Indiana University), Seongyeon Ko (CUNY Queens College), and Angela Lee-Smith (Yale University)

Moderator: Seongyeon Ko (CUNY Queens College)

PANEL PRESENTATIONS

1. “Rediscovering Lee Qoede: A Hidden Master of Korean Modern Art”

Jinyoung Anna Jin (Stony Brook University)

While many Korean audiences admire the works of modern European artists, this lecture offers a rare opportunity to connect with the remarkable yet often overlooked legacy of Lee Qoede (1913–1965), a pivotal figure in Korean modern art. Join Korean art historian and curator Jinyoung Jin as she reveals the life and work of this forgotten artist, whose powerful paintings capture the complex struggles of postliberation Korea, the Korean War, and the resilience of its people. Lee’s journey—from enduring three years in a prisoner-of-war camp to defecting to North Korea in 1953—reflects the ideological and cultural conflicts of his time. His art, infused with the spirit of twentieth-century social realism, stands as a testament to the Korean people’s perseverance and a window into international artistic dialogues. Jin will highlight how Lee’s work was shaped by global influences, including Mexican muralism, and why his legacy deserves to be celebrated alongside the world’s great artists.

About the presenter: Dr. Jinyoung Anna Jin is the Director of Asian Art and Culture at the Charles B. Wang Center at Stony Brook University. Jin has organized critically acclaimed exhibitions including Korea: A Land of Hats (2019), The Power and Pleasure of Possessions in Korean Painted Screens (2016), Comfort Women Wanted (2014), and Seas of Blue: Asian Indigo Dye (2014). Many of her curated exhibitions have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the PBS. Jin’s recent publication includes Art, War, and Exile in Modern Korea: Rethinking the Life and Work of Lee Qoede (Amsterdam University Press, 2025), Park Dae Sung: Ink Reimagined (2022), and Chaekgeori: The Power and Pleasure of Possessions in Korean Painted Screens (SUNY Press, 2017). Jin serves as a member of the community advisory board of PBS Thirteen/WLIW.

숨겨진 한국 근대미술의 거장 이쾌대를 다시 만나다

이번 콜로키엄의 첫 번째 발표에서는 미술사 학자이자 전시 기획자인 진진영의 신간 <Art, War, and Exile in Modern Korea: Rethinking the Life and Work of Lee Qoede> (이쾌대의 삶과 작품으로 재조명한 한국의 근대 예술과 전쟁, 그리고 월북)을 계기로 화가 이쾌대(1913–1965)의 독창적인 예술 세계를 조명할 예정입니다.

이쾌대는 일제강점기 한국에서 태어나 일본에서 서양미술을 공부하며 1940년대 이중섭, 김환기 등과 함께 활발히 활동한 화가였습니다. 그러나 한국전쟁이라는 비극적인 역사의 소용돌이 속에서 전쟁 포로가 되고, 한국전쟁 휴전협정 당시 북한행을 선택하며 부인과 네 자녀와 생이별을 하고, 북한에서 52세라는 짧은 나이에 생을 마감한 작가입니다. 월북자라는 이유로 그의 이름은 1988년까지 남한에서 금기시되었고 현재도 사상의 잣대로 그의 작품이 제대로 평가를 받지 못하고 있습니다. 본 강연은 이쾌대의 생애와 그의 작품을 한국 미술의 틀과 한반도에 제한하지 않고, 동시대의 세계정세와 멕시코 벽화운동의 흐름 속에서 재조명합니다.

2. “Crawling through Worm-Time: Park Wan-suh’s Literary Testimony on Cold War South Korea”

We Jung Yi (Vanderbilt University)

How can we understand the fiercely divided politics of contemporary South Korea without remembering the generational impact of the unfinished Korean War? In her new book, Worm-Time: Memories of Division in South Korean Aesthetics (Cornell University Press, 2024), We Jung Yi historicizes the deepening political polarization—which exploits the vilification of those perceived as Reds (ppalgaengi)—by tracing anticommunist developmentalism, the ideology that has informed the survival of this postcolonial nation on the Cold War frontier. Park Wan-suh (Pak Wansŏ, 1931–2011) is one of the earliest writers to speak of the wormification of “unpatriotic” or “unproductive” subjects during the militant modernization led by an authoritarian regime. Raised to embody the ideal of the “new woman” in colonial Seoul, she endured the persecution inflicted on families associated with Reds and worked as a saleswoman in the US Army PX during the war. Having become a middle-class mother under Park Chung Hee’s rule, she felt compelled to testify to the days when she, like many others, suffered as a worm (pŏlle), refusing to allow them to remain low, forgettable beings in the coming era of supposed peace and prosperity. In this lecture, Yi will guide readers of Park Wan-suh’s literary testimony to the time of the worm, showing how the woman novelist’s work of transmemory paved the way for division aesthetics to counter divisive politics.

About the presenter: Dr. We Jung Yi is Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at Vanderbilt University. A specialist in modern Korean literature and culture, her research explores the intersection of global imperialism and ethnonational movements, using a comparative lens that draws on translation theory, gender criticism, and histories of violence in the Pacific Rim. In her first monograph, Worm-Time: Memories of Division in South Korean Aesthetics (Cornell University Press, 2024), she probes how the entanglement of colonial legacies, Cold War ideologies, and neoliberal economics defines contemporary in/human life, analyzing a broad spectrum of memory works, from influential novels of dissent against dictatorial rule to blockbuster films and webtoons in the era of the Korean Wave. Her other work has appeared in the Journal of Korean Studies, the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, and positions: asia critique. She is the co-editor of “Forgetting Wars,” special issue, Verge: Studies in Global Asias (Fall 2019).

벌레의 시간을 넘어: 박완서 문학과 냉전의 기억

두 번째 발표는 근현대 한국문학/문화 연구자 이위정 교수 (밴더빌트 대학교 아시아학과)의 최근 저작 <<벌레-시간: 분단 기억과한국 미학>> (Worm-Time: Memories of Division in South Korean Aesthetics, Cornell University Press, 2024)을 토대로, “기억의 번역, 기억을 통한 변혁” (transmemory)이라는 관점에서 소설가 박완서(1931-2011)가 남긴 한국전쟁 서사를 재조명합니다. 6.25 발발 이후 폐허가 된 서울에서 “빨갱이/반동의 누이”로 살아남아야 했던 작가는 20년 뒤 안정된 중산층주부의 일상에 이르게 되지만, 냉전 질서에 포획된 “벌레”로 생존했던 기억은 그녀로 하여금 변혁적 글쓰기를 통해 반공 개발독재 시대 이후 더욱 굳어져 가는 분단구조에 균열을 일으키게끔 이끕니다. 본 강연에서는 이러한 “포월적” (기어 넘기/끌어안고-넘어섬) 글쓰기의 역사적 맥락과 젠더 정치적 함의를 함께 고찰해 보고자 합니다.