Christianity, the Sovereign Subject, and Ethnic Nationalism in Colonial Korea

One of the first philosophical approaches to the study of Korea’s ethnic nationalism, Christianity, the Sovereign Subject, and Ethnic Nationalism in Colonial Korea traces the impact of Christianity in the formation of Korean national  identity, outlining the metaphysical origins of the concept of the  sovereign subject. 

This monograph takes a  meta-historical approach and engages the moral questions of Korean  historiography amid the fraught politics of narrating colonialism and  the postcolonial period. Indebted to Jacques Derrida’s philosophy of  deconstruction and his framework of "hauntology," this monograph unpacks  the ethical consequences of ethnic nationalism, exploring how Western  metaphysics has haunted imaginations of freedom in colonial Korea. While  most studies of modern Korean nationalism and (post)colonialism have  taken a cultural, literary, or social scientific approach, this book  draws on the thought of Jacques Derrida to offer an innovative  intellectual history of Korea’s colonial period. By deconstructing the  metaphysical claims of turn-of-the-century Protestant missionaries and  early modern Korean intellectuals, the book showcases the relevance of  Derrida’s philosophical method in the study of modern Korean history. 

This is a must read for scholars interested in Derrida, historiography, and Korean history.