International Journal of Korean History (Aug 2014)

“Liberation Space” and Times of Resistance in Visual Records

  • Jeong Sim Yang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.22372/ijkh.2014.19.2.71
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 19, no. 2
pp. 71 – 105

Abstract

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This paper attempts to discuss social aspects of the “liberation space” or the history of three years after the Korean liberation from the Japanese colonial rule, through audiovisual records of the time. The object of analyses will be audiovisual resources, specifically news films and documentary films, which are rooted in facts. The use of not only written documents but also photographs, posters, and other historical resources is increasing in studying Korean history. This paper will reconstruct the space of liberation based on vivid audiovisual records of the time. In particular, this paper focuses on the points in films that deviate from the motives and intentions of the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK), which was the principal agent that produced and screened the films examined in this paper. This study attempts to capture and ruminate on the significance of the moments of Korean peoples’ struggle for the right to live and their political protests to stop the division of the Korean Peninsula under the oppression of USAMGIK.

Keywords