‘현재’와 조우하는 한국 현대사, 그 새로운 방향들: 2016~2017년도 한국현대사 연구 동향

Abstract

This paper overviews recent studies on the post-1945 history of Korea in the past two years (2016~2017). Over 280 articles were written about post-1945 Korean history, which were tightly related to contemporary Korean socio-cultural and political issues. Most of all, there were many studies done on Park Chung Hee period that was somewhat thwarted in the years of his daughter, Park Geun-hye's presidency. Regarding the characteristics of Park Chung Hee's developmental state, some argued that industrialization and modernization of South Korea was advanced in Park Chung Hee time, while many others show skepticism in those arguments. The governmentality of Park’s time were researched revealing various attitudes and desires of people in that development. Studies on ‘cultural cold war’ were produced to a great degree in past two years Studies on Korean War and Vietnam War continued. Also one significant aspect of the past two years of post-1945 Korean history was the rise of gender and sexuality history. Thanks to MeToo movement of contemporary South Korea, gender and sexuality history challenged the male-centric national history. The issue of post-coloniality was the largely shared/examined. There were increasing articles written on North Korean history and culture, reflecting recent amicable atmosphere between North and South Korea. Finally, new methodological approaches such as new cultural history, oral history and subaltern studies played a role in enriching post-1945 historical studies.