Toward Democracy: South Korean Culture and Society, 1945–1980

This volume brings together translated essays by fourteen established and emerging South Korean scholars. Using approaches from sociology, political science, history, and literary and cultural studies, the authors offer innovative and nuanced analyses of a wide range of topics from refugee displacement to street politics, from anti-communism and democracy to militarization―and discuss the links between cultural productions and their sociohistorical contexts. Divided into five parts, the collection begins with the national division in 1945 and devastating civil war and concludes with the May 18 Democratic Uprising in 1980.