This session explores literature's engagement with historical trauma, memory, and authoritarianism across diverse cultural and historical contexts. Through comparative analysis of works from South Korea, Japan, Ireland, and the United States, we examine representations of colonial aftermath, political oppression, and intergenerational healing. Featuring four presentations, this session highlights the ways in which literary narratives bear witness to trauma, challenge historical erasure, and serve as sites of resistance and remembrance.
Oh aims to compare James Joyce's *A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man* and Yang Yong-hi's *A Tale of Korea University* to examine the aftermaths of (post)colonialism by analyzing the anguish of artists living under British and Japanese imperialism respectively. As both James Joyce, an Irish novelist, and Yang Yong-hi, a Zainichi filmmaker and novelist, deal with the dilemma of colonized artists, this study examines the similarities and differences between the two Bildungsromans in terms of history, language, and identity. This presentation argues that both Joyce and Yang yearn for harmonious relationships between the colonized and the colonizers while portraying the aftermaths of colonialism.
Park and Han examines generational trauma and healing in *Comfort Woman* by Nora Okja Keller and *We Do Not Part* by Han Kang. Both texts portray mothers and daughters bearing trauma as marginalized Asian women. Nature motifs, such as rivers and snow, symbolize pain for the mothers but serve as a path to healing for the daughters. Keller highlights intergenerational healing among women, while Han explores healing through horizontal relationships. Ultimately, this presentation shows that confronting pain rather than suppressing it offers hope for healing.
BAE examines how George Orwell’s *Nineteen Eighty-Four* and Han Kang’s *Human Acts* portray dehumanization and the impossibility of grievability through Judith Butler’s theory of ‘grievable life.’ Despite differences in genre and historical context, both novels depict authoritarian regimes that render human life precarious. *Nineteen Eighty-Four* illustrates how the Party erases dissenters, controlling life and death through surveillance and repression. Similarly, *Human Acts* portrays government-sponsored violence during the Gwangju Uprising, where grieving for the dead is systematically silenced. By applying Butler’s framework, this study explores how oppressive regimes deny individuals the right to mourn, further devaluing human life.
Son examines examines the relationship between socio-political conditions and immigration patterns through a comparative analysis of Nancy Jooyoun Kim's *The Last Story of Mina Lee* and Jeanine Cummins's *American Dirt*. This presentation explores how the suppression of painful memories from Korean history creates a generational divide between parents and their children. Furthermore, it critically explores whether literary themes—such as the Korean War, war orphans, drug cartels, and illegal immigration—have been reconstructed into simplified narratives to suit white tastes in mainstream American publishing.
