포스트식민적 망각에서 포스트메모리로

From PostColonial Amnesia To Postmemory: A Study on the Transition in Theatrical Memory and Representation of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery

This study aims to examine the changing patterns of the theatrical memories and reproductions of the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery and shed light on their social and cultural implications. For these purposes, the study examined the reproduction patterns of the major works published one after another in the 1990s after Kim Hak-sun's open testimony in 1991 and also the works since 2010 when changes to the theatrical reproduction of the Japanese military Sexual Slavery were actively detected. The works created in the 1990s focused on telling the historical truth of the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery issue, which had long been forgotten, and reporting the brutality of Japanese imperialism. Most of all, they integrated drama on showing the pain of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery as “victims of sexual violence in the history of national suffering.” The emotions of shock, fear, anger, and sadness maximized in these works hold legitimacy in that they were the main elements to induce sympathy and solidarity over the “Sexual Slavery” issue from people. On the other hand, however, they have limitations in that they block critical perceptions to search for the accurate understanding and solution of the violent events as they bury people in shock, anger, and grudge. The works published after 2010 have the viewpoint and problematic consciousness of the postmemory generation who sees the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery issue as a cultural trauma that has not been solved and still has an influence in the present times rather than a painful history of the past. This period witnessed the emergence of works that dropped the nationalistic and sentimental viewpoint to look at the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery and expanded the issue as a community issue by projecting the contemporary problematic consciousness. Unlike the works from the past, they were not buried in the “testimony frame” and made active access to the historical trauma of the previous generation through “imagination and creative involvement,” seeking “solidarity over pain” and thinking over their accountability as the next generation. At last, a new pattern of cultural memories as this postmemory or “solodarity postmemory” began to show actively.