Memory Construction and the Politics of Time in Neoliberal South Korea

Namhee Lee is Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles, author of The Making of Minjung: Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, and coeditor of The South Korean Democratization Movement: A Sourcebook.

• Acknowledgments  viiNotes on Romanization and Translations  xiIntroduction: The Politics of Time and Neoliberal Disavowal  11. The Paradigm Shift from Minjung (People) to Simin (Citizen) and Neoliberal Governance  232. The Paradigm Shift from the Political to the Cultural and Huildam Literature  453. Park Chung-hee Syndrome, Mass Media, and “Culture War”  714. The Rise of New Right Historiography and Its Triumphalist Discourse  95Epilogue: Politics of Time and the Poetics of Remembrance  121Notes  137Bibliography  177Index  207

"Lee’s book makes a significant contribution to current literature on social memory, in particular, by demonstrating how memory becomes a tool for mass media to construct alternate narratives of history and collective memories of the past." - Charlotte Hammond (European Journal of Korean Studies) "Memory Reconstruction is a welcome addition not only for those interested in Korean politics and history but also more broadly for readers interested in learning how democratization and democracy can be fragile under the persistence of the Cold War system and the blunt desires of neoliberal capitalist forces. The book further contributes to a comparative, historical understanding of the Far Right in the East Asian context." - Yoonkyung Lee (Journal of Asian Studies) "Memory Construction and the Politics of Time in Neoliberal South Korea opens new avenues for the study of neoliberalism and social memory. Lee does an admirable job of providing empirically and theoretically rich accounts of collective memory in post-1987 South Korea. By offering a cultural history of the 1990s and 2000s, the book deepens our understanding of South Korea’s ongoing turn to right-wing populism." - Bohyeong Kim (Acta Koreana)