Abstract In 1990, the South Korean government announced the construction of a new international airport on reclaimed land to the west of Seoul. This proposal drew the ire of environmental groups and major newspapers as an environmental and economic disaster. The international airport construction proposal arrived at an inflection point of post-1987 democratization, government liberalization of travel restrictions, the growth of the aviation industry, rising environmentalism, and the beginning of a global recession. While large-scale infrastructure projects had enabled South Korea’s rapid economic rise, the high environmental costs sparked intense public interest among South Koreans. However, the openness of the post-1987 period was a double-edged sword for environmental groups. While they found greater freedom to organize and high public interest in environmental issues, the public also had the freedom to decide the type of environmentalism and lifestyle they wanted to pursue. This article examines the Incheon International Airport construction proposal as a case study of the intersection between economic history and environmental history, with popular sentiment as a key swing variable. This study argues that the Incheon airport proposal illustrates the contemporary nature of South Korean environmentalism, lifestyle objectives, and economic consciousness.
Abstract This essay examines Milan Kundera’s unexpected presence in 1950s North Korean literature, revealing a forgotten chapter of socialist world literature in the Cold War era. The study focuses on three of Kundera’s poems related to the Korean War: “The Gardener,” “Korean Ballad,” and his epic poem “The Last May,” which revolves around the anti-fascist martyr Julius Fučík. By analyzing North Korean literary journals including Chosŏn munhak, the essay traces how Kundera’s early socialist poetry arrived in North Korea as part of broader international solidarity efforts during and after the Korean War. Noting how the translation of these works occurred at a specific historical moment when North Korea was actively engaging with Eastern European literature before turning inward in the 1960s, the essay situates Kundera within North Korea’s evolving conception of “world literature,” which shifted from Soviet-centeredness through Eastern European engagement to eventual interest in the Tricontinental (Asia, Africa, Latin America) before closing off entirely. The divided reception exemplifies the broader fragmentation of world literature during the Cold War, gesturing to the power dynamic that shapes literary histories in conversation with but also beyond ideological boundaries.
Abstract Younghill Kang’s 1931 novel The Grass Roof, long taken as the first commercially successful novel by a Korean in English, is unusual for incorporating sixty-five of its author’s translations of East Asian poetry into its narrative fabric. These embedded translations represented one of the early mass audiences for Korean poetry in English. This article argues that The Grass Roof adapts the literary convention of inset poetry (sabipsi) from the premodern Korean novel, hybridizing it with English-language autobiographical fiction. It proves Kang knew traditional narrative models by analyzing his depictions in the novel of the Kuunmong and Ch’unhyang chŏn. It then examines two different uses of inset poetry in the novel: (1) retrospective ornamentation by the narrator and (2) dynamic plot advancement by characters. The second function, in particular, reflects classical uses of sabipsi to heighten scenes of courtship and erudition. Kang’s use of inset poetry gave Korean poetry an unusually early global audience at the same time as it drew Western and Korean novelistic techniques together in a new, shared experiment.
