The Making of Modern Subjects: Public Discourses on Korean Female Spectators in the Early Twentieth Century

Under Japanese colonial rule in the early 20th century, Korean women began to expand their realm from the domestic to the public sphere. Sung Un Gang examines how the women's gaze was reimagined in public discourse as they began attending plays and movies, and investigates the complex negotiation process surrounding women's public presence. As the first extensive study of Korean female spectators of the colonial era, it analyses newspapers, magazines, fictions, and images and argues that public discourse aimed to mold them into a male-driven and top-down modernization project. This study reconceptualizes colonial Korean female spectators as diverse active agents with their own politics.