Aesthetic Constructions of Korean Nationalism chooses expositions, museums and the urban built environment at particular moments in both colonial and postcolonial eras and analyses their discursive relations in the construction of Korean nationalism. By linking concepts of visual spectacle, space and governmentality, this book explores how visual spectacles and spaces made the nation imaginable to the public in both the past and the present; how they represented a new modality of seeing for the state and contributed to the shaping of collective identities in colonial and postcolonial Korea; and how their different modes were associated with the change in governmentality in Korea. In addressing these questions, the book interprets the politics behind the culture of displays and shows both the continuity and the transformation of spectacles as a governing technology in twentieth-century Korea.

Introduction Part I: Modernity, Colonial Expositions and the City Chapter 1: Nationalism and the Politics of Visual Comparison: The 1915 Korean Industrial Exposition Chapter 2: Modeling the West, Returning to Asia: The 1929 Korean Exposition Chapter 3: Seoul in Motion: Urban Form and Political Consciousness Part II: Korean Nationalism and Postcolonial Exhibitions Chapter 4: The Temple of Ethnic Nationalism: War Memorial Museums in Korea and Japan Chapter 5: Ancestors, the Avant-garde and the Making of "Culture" in Postcolonial Korea Chapter 6: Flowing Back to the Future: the Cheonggye Stream Restoration