This review examines the recent research movements in the study of Japanese colonialism from the perspective of ancient history of Korea. Recently, scholars have increasingly critically examined the Japanese colonial historiography and its historical ...
This review examines the recent research movements in the study of Japanese colonialism from the perspective of ancient history of Korea. Recently, scholars have increasingly critically examined the Japanese colonial historiography and its historical perspectives on the ancient history of Korea. This increase can be attributed to two factors. One is exogenous, China’s Northeast Asian Project(東北工程), while the other is endogenously developed post-colonialism.
The Northeast Asian Project has led the Korean historians to re-examine the history of Manchuria-Korea(滿鮮史), through which they could critique the groundlessness of the Project and reflect upon the structure and nature of Korean ancient history. Such a reflection, however, has been already present in the efforts to reconsider colonialism within the discipline. In particular, I note the self-reflection upon the modernity in nationalism that has arisen from the perspective of post-colonialism. This allowed the study of Korean ancient history to recognize the underlying nature of the study of modern history and to acknowledge the limits of national history. Unfortunately, there has been a lack of alternative framework of history so far that can plausibly replace the existing national history. The recent research trends, however, have important values to offer, including its efforts to re-examine colonialism as well as to search for new perspectives and methods.