서강대학교

목차

The issue of Japan’s war crimes and the appropriate apology for these crimes has become one of the most critical concerns in contemporary East Asian relations. This project will focus on how Japan-Korea relations are both affected and defined by this issue by attempting to to deconstruct the issue of a Japanese apology to its former colonized peoples. Inspired by the Foucauldian genealogical approach to history and politics, I intend to examine the supposedly ‘postcolonial’ nationalism of East Asia in order to demonstrate that it is the paradoxical nature of modernity that ensures the strategic failure of modernity in the non-West. By beginning with Japan’s early and rapid modernization, its colonization of Korea and the American reconstruction of the two countries after WWII, a solid foundation is laid for understanding the ensuing discussion on the political needs and identity crisis that continues to bedevil Japan and Korea and hence affects their relationship and regional stability.