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The Institute for Korean Studies will present a lecture by Na Sil Heo, University of South Carolina, on April 3 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. at 1039 Derby Hall. Prof. Heo will present "Privacy for Modern Housing: Transnational Anti-Communism and Postwar Reconstruction in Cold War South Korea."
Abstract: After the Korean War (1950–53), Korean architects (re)negotiated their understanding of good, modern housing befitting the Cold War milieu. Among many, privacy (p’ŭraibo ̆shi) became a central architectural concern in South Korea, reflecting Korea’s deep engagement with liberal values that were claimed to be lacking in socialist countries. In this talk, I argue that the discussion of conjugal sex in architectural texts, newspapers, and magazines was linked to Cold War visions of privacy, which was construed to be distinct to liberal, capitalist societies (noncommunist societies). Privacy was a project of articulating a qualitative difference from the collective and communal housing that was understood to be characteristic of communism in North Korea. In this way, housing became a site of transnational anti-communism, as architects and aspiring homeowners invested much energy in the ideological and material construction of privacy as a salient feature of modern housing in South Korea.
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