Worm-Time challenges conventional narratives of the Cold War and its end, presenting an alternative cultural history based on evolving South Korean aesthetics about enduring national division. From novels of dissent during the authoritarian era to films and webtoons in the new millennium, We Jung Yi's transmedia analyses unearth people's experiences of "wormification"-traumatic survival, deferred justice, and warped capitalist growth in the wake of the Korean War.
Whether embodied as refugees, leftists, or broken families, Yi's wormified protagonists transcend their positions as displaced victims of polarized politics and unequal development. Through metamorphoses into border riders who fly over or crawl through the world's dividing lines, they reclaim postcolonial memories buried in the pursuit of modernization under US hegemony and cultivate a desire for social transformation. Connecting colonial legacies, Cold War ideologies, and neoliberal economics, Worm-Time dares us to rethink the post-WWII consensus on freedom, peace, and prosperity.
| ISBN: | 9781501778575 |
| Publication date: | 15th December 2024 |
| Author: | |
| Publisher: | Cornell University East Asia Program an imprint of Cornell University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 268 pages |
| Genres: |
Military history: post-WW2 conflicts Ethnic studies Literary studies: general Comparative literature |