Award Information

2020
Institutional Affiliation (at time of award):
Asian Languages and Cultures
Rethinking Migrant Narratives: The Case of Korean Literary Communities in Latin America

The project focuses on an in-depth exploration of migrant narratives of Korean Latin American literary communities from the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century. To understand how migrant narratives challenge both the current literary historical tendency to view literature through an ethnic-nation-centered lens and the system of world history that mainly revolves around Euro-Atlantic movements; this study analyzes two literary magazines of the Korean-Latin American literary community, Cultura Tropical (Yoldae Munhwa), circulated in urban areas of Brazil, and Los Andes Literature (Rosu Andesu Munhak), circulated in urban areas of Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. In order to think about the close relationship between nation building and the history of migration, and the status and plurality of voices in that context, this work takes multiple, intersecting analytical lenses: community, language, and spatiality. These lenses help us to focus on voices of multiple pluralities that conflict with the idea of 'one language, one nation' and to think about how these literary texts can question the construction of national identity, as well as, the connection between identity and mother tongue. Furthermore, by exploring these literary magazines—language-based sites that aimed to embody the migrant experience— this project examines the way literature contributes to and materializes connections between experience and spatiality.

Menu