Figuring Korean Futures

Dafna Zur is Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford University.

"Figuring Korean Futures is a remarkable achievement, a rigorous study based on extensive archival research of the virtual explosion of children's literature in early twentieth-century Korea and its investment in the nation's future. The book gives welcome new insights into colonial modernity and astutely illuminates some of the most fundamental concerns of the colonial period."—Karen Thornber, Harvard University "Dafna Zur's superb study of the rise of Korean children's literature from 1908 to 1950 is based on remarkably thorough research and critical analysis. It is the first profound history of Korea's children's literature in English and covers all the political and social complexities involving the nation's aspirations, the modern focus on the child as a symbol of hope, and the transformative power of imagination."—Jack Zipes, University of Minnesota "Figuring Korean Futures offers a powerful and important history of children's literature in Korea from the early 1900s through the late 1940s. Drawing on a wealth of textual and visual sources, Dafna Zur's groundbreaking book demonstrates the ways in which the notions of the child and a literature for children stand at the center of Korean articulations of the modern itself."—Theodore Hughes, Columbia University "Thoughtfully presented and informative, the book makes it clear that Zur read widely and conscientiously, combing through not only the magazines themselves for worthwhile opportunities to put her considerable powers of close reading to work, but also a great number of secondary sources on a wide range of subjects....Zur's book...gives an admirably cogent overview of an important subfield of modern Korean literary studies, and, in the process, manages to illuminate broader concerns regarding modernity, coloniality, nationalism, and translation."—Youngju Ryu, Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review "Figuring Korean Futures: Children's Literature in Modern Korea is a valuable contribution to the literary history of the colonial and postcolonial period. With this publication, Zur provides scholars and casual readers alike with an exhaustively researched and masterfully written analysis of how the Korean child was imagined, appropriated, entertained, mobilized, and educated through children's literature in the tumultuous first half of the twentieth century in Korea."—Steven D. Capener, Pacific Affairs "A remarkable new work of scholarship....The defining English language history of this defining era of modern Korean children's literature, Figuring Korean Futures is a tremendous achievement."—Christopher Richardson, European Journal of Korean Studies "As a first monograph in the English language on children's literature, Zur's study is an invaluable contribution to scholarship on the print culture of modern Korea. The richness of her study is further enhanced through her keen analyses of visual materials. Also impressive is Zur's contextualization of children's literature through histories of education and welfare institutions in Korea...Zur's study provides an astute analysis of the development of children's literature and its connection to the inexorable forces of colonialism, nationalism, and modernity."—Susan Hwang, Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth

• Introduction: The Child and Modern Korea1. The Youth Magazine in Early Colonial Korea2. Figuring the Child-Heart3. Writing the Language of the Child-Heart4. The Proletarian Child Fights Back5. Playing War in Late Colonial Korea6. Liberating the Child-HeartEpilogue: The Turn to Science in Postwar North and South Korea