Global COE Program　INFORMATION

Symposium

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　Images of “gaichi”—foreign colonies or territories once owned by Japan—have been created in various forms of media, such as newspapers, magazines and travel guides. Meanwhile, this formation of the image of gaichi has become the foreground in relation to the “naichi”—the cultural and political center—and within the reciprocating of the center and peripheral images lies the strength of Japan’s colonial system.

　This symposium will summarize the past 5 years of the Ritsumeikan University Global COE activities and examine the possibilities of gaichi literature research. Besides the presently scheduled publication of “Gaichi Bungaku-e-no Shatei”, a collection of theses centering on Kazunobu Kimura who is responsible for research activities, this symposium will also discuss the scope of methodology within gaichi literature research.

　The aim of this symposium is to access the materials collected and processed into a database at the Ritsumeikan University’s Art Research Center to consider the images of Japan and Korea in Korea under Japanese rule. While the Kyeongseong Ilbo newspaper is believed to have been mainly read by Japanese people living in Korea during Japanese rule, from the articles we can get a glimpse of the dilemma concerning what sort of intermediate stance these Japanese were supposed to take. The symposium will also examine problems regarding Japanese translations of modern Korean literature. By finding out what kind of dynamics were at work in terms of the translation of texts, we may be able to see the arbitrariness of the image of Korea.  

■ Schedule