Bow and Obey: A Cultural History of Korea, France, and Unrelenting Resistance (1866-1910)

Abstract

In French and Francophone Studies, studies on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Francophone experiences in Asia have tended to focus primarily on Indochina, leaving noteworthy interactions elsewhere much less thoroughly examined. This dissertation responds to that difference through focusing entirely on cultural-historical Franco-Korean interactions. It aligns with current research in French and Francophone Studies combining the interdisciplinary study of visual culture with analyses of literary texts, and as it takes up this approach, it is particularly attuned to issues of power and discourse. By performing analyses of both textual and visual materials, such as novels, newspaper articles, photographs, public spectacles, etc., while being attentive to the specific historical and political natures of their production, it argues that when all of them are woven together, they constitute an ideological discourse that is specific to Korea. The dominant discourse is one of submission, in which the Korean people were represented as being weak and “incapable of resistance.” The counter-discourse opposes this idea, representing Korea and its people as being resistant. While identifying this binary opposition, this dissertation also problematizes and undermines it, demonstrating its fragility and inability to sustain itself. Moreover, this study demonstrates how certain critical frameworks, such as Orientalism, have thus far been inadequate to parsing the particular realities that defined the relationship between France and Korea during the nineteenth- and early twentieth centuries. Each chapter examines a “discursive event,” which is rooted in a historical reality, and which inspires a particularly marked cultural reaction. They offer up a series of case studies in nineteenth-century attitudes about Korea as evidenced in first-person travel accounts, newspapers, and Korea’s official participation in the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris. A chapter which focuses specifically on fictional accounts of Korea supplements these, expanding on the picture of Korea in the French imaginary. The terminal chapter considers the Korean Independence Movement, using it as a case study for considering how Korean resistance fighters worked to reclaim existing narratives about Korea in service of their goals for independence.