Cold War Feminism as a Postcolonial Methodology: Middlebrow Literature in (South) Korea

Abstract

<p>This presentation explores narratives of Cold War Feminism as a methodology – a strategic practice of several women writers in the postcolonial era – by focusing on two leading female writers at the time as case studies. The presentation will start with a short introduction on middlebrow literature and Cold War Feminism, and discuss how women’s travel narratives fit in these categories. In this period, the genre of travel abroad narratives was highly reliant on state support, both from inside and outside the Korean peninsula. A limited number of elite women writers, including Mo Youn Sook and Kim Marl-bong, could visit Europe to participate in international meetings organized by the United Nations. Other government initiatives included the United Kingdom’s “goodwill tours.” Such events were connected to the Cultural Cold War, the extension of Cold War politics in the cultural domain. After such visits, these women actively published their travelogues, conveying their impressions of Europe and European women to Korean readers. Postcolonial Korean women’s travel narratives markedly differ from earlier European travelogues published by so-called New Women based on their travels in the 1920s –30s. This has to do with the fact that, after 1945, foreign travel of South Koreans was monitored by the South Korean state, and in many cases, had to be supported by the United States and their allies. <br></p>