Queer Korea

"In the past 30 years, discourses on queerness and the central political issues of LGBT life that originate in the United States-- like same-sex marriage-- have been exported and used to identify the presence of queer community in other parts of the world. QUEER KOREA brings together historical, ethnographic, and literary essays that establish a queer historiography of Korea. Editor Todd Henry asserts that Western forms of queerness, and the reading practices used to identify queerness in the American academy, are insufficient to describe the range of queer life on the Korean peninsula. He argues that particular developments in Korean modernity-- including its histories of colonialism, nationalism, and authoritarianism from the turn of the century to the Cold War-- have informed the language and politics of queerness in Korea and the Korean diaspora. In addition to compiling the first volume focused on queerness in Korea, including work from the South Korean academy, this volume asserts that placing queerness at the center of Korean studies, rather than at the margins, produces new analytic possibilities for the field." -- Provided by publisher.