Apologies for cross-posting.<br />----------------------<br /><br />A seminar in the Japanese Studies Seminar Series<br /><br />by <font color="#0000ff"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Matthew Todd </b></span></font><br /><br />12:30pm - 01:30pm<br />12 October 2012<br />Seminar Room E3.43; 3F, BPB (Build #110)<br /><br /><br />"<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The Repatriation Boat: the personal and the political in the early work of Lee Hoe-sung</b>"</span></span><br /><br />In
1971, Lee Hoe-sung (1935-) became the first ethnically non-Japanese
author to win the coveted Akutagawa Prize. His win marked a shift in the
Japanese literary canon, seeing the creation of a space allowing the
exploration of postcolonial identity in post-war Japan. Ōe Kenzaburō,
winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, once described him as “a
writer who expresses the experiences and thoughts of the Koreans in the
Japanese language”. <br /><br />Lee was born on the island of Sakhalin in
1935. His early life is notable for its constant movement - Sakhalin was
returned to the USSR in 1945, forcing Lee and his family to be moved to
Hakodate, and later, Sapporo. Entering university, Lee became a part of
the Korean student activist movement that advocated the return to North
Korea for all Koreans living in Japan after the Pacific War. His work
draws heavily on these personal experiences, telling the Korean story as
a counter to the Japanese grand narrative.<br /><br />In this seminar, I
will explore several early works by Lee, examining the ways in which he
constructs a subaltern identity through his work- a postcolonial,
minority identity in the face of the Japanese norm. I will focus
particularly on the ways in which Lee hijacks traditional Japanese
literary forms to create a hybrid literature that occupies a unique
space in the Japanese canon.<br /><br />Works discussed in detail will
include: "Towards our youth" (われら青春の途上にて: 1969); "Things left behind by
the dead" (死者に遺したもの: 1970); and For Kayako (伽倻子のために: 1970).<br /><br /><br />-----------------------<br /><br />All welcome<br />Inquiry: Duck.Lee@anu.edu.au<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />--<br />Duck-Young Lee, PhD<br />Japan & Linguistics<br />Building #110<br />School of Culture, History and Language<br />College of Asia and the Pacific Studies<br />Australian National University<br />Canberra, ACT 0200<br /><br />Phone: +61 2 6125 3205<br />Email: Duck.Lee@anu.edu.au<br /><br />CRICOS Provider #00120C