2015JANGSHPhD.pdf (2.75 MB)
A representation of nationhood: The National Museum of Korea
thesis
posted on 2017-08-16, 09:44 authored by Sang Hoon JangThis thesis explores how the National Museum of Korea (NMK), national repository of
material culture and the state’s premier exhibition facility, has shaped and been shaped
by Korean nationalism, and how South Korea’s post-colonial state in East Asia has
secured its national identity through the national museum.
This thesis is divided into 6 chapters. Chapter 1 examines the colonial and political
background of the formation of major government-run museum institutions. Chapter 2
looks at the establishment of NMK in the contemporary political and international
political setting of the construction of the South Korean state after liberation. Chapter 3
then focuses on an international political aspect of NMK’s overseas exhibition in the US
under the Cold War system, arguing that this exhibition contributed to promoting
notions of Korean national identity both within and beyond South Korea. Chapter 4
explores Park Chung Hee and his government’s strong nationalist drive to utilise the
national museum as a medium of national unity and mobilisation. Chapter 5 again turns
to the overseas exibition project led by NMK from 1976 to 1981 and shows that a more
systematised nationalist narrative of material culture by NMK’s curators and South
Korean intellectuals was constructed domestically and displayed internationally.
Chapter 6 focuses on South Koreans’ internalisation of the nationalist narrative during
the 1980s and 1990s, discussing NMK’s activities directed toward audiences and a
series of reopening projects it undertook and their impacts on South Korean society.
The thesis concludes with the argument that since its inauguration in December 1945,
the National Museum of Korea has undertaken activities for executing national tasks,
which include constructing the discourse of ethnic national culture in support of modern
nation building, national unity and internal mobilisation, and securing international
recognition of the cultural sovereignty of the Republic of Korea.
History
Supervisor(s)
Knell, SimonDate of award
2015-03-01Author affiliation
School of Museum StudiesAwarding institution
University of LeicesterQualification level
- Doctoral
Qualification name
- PhD