Modernist Survival: O Changhwan in Moscow

Speaker: Janet Poole (University of Toronto) Hybrid Event | RSVP/Registration Required RSVP for In Person Attendance at Bottom of Page Register for Virtual Attendance - COMING SOON Note: This event will begin on "Berkeley Time" at 5:10 PM. Talk Summary: COMING SOON Speaker Bio: Janet Poole teaches in the fields of Korean literature and literary translation at the University of Toronto.

Her most recent book Patterns of the Heart and Other Stories (Columbia University Press, 2024) presents an introduction to the little known modernist writer Ch'oe Myŏngik (1903-?). Born and based in Pyongyang throughout his career, Ch'oe's work lovingly details life in that city and chronicles the hopes and dreams for a new society in the age of decolonization.

A dedicated literary translator, Poole has also translated works by mid-twentieth century writer Yi T'aejun (1904-?), publishing a collection of his anecdotal essays (Eastern Sentiments) and a selection of his short stories (Dust and Other Stories). A new book project, "Decolonizing Style: Going North and the History of Korean Modernism," looks at the writings of Korea's modernist writers and artists who crossed the 38th parallel into what was to become the Democratic People's Republic in the late 1940s.

The project follows upon an earlier study of modernist responses to the fascist regime of the late colonial era, When the Future Disappears: The Modernist Imagination in Late Colonial Korea (Columbia University Press, 2014).