"Lee’s book makes a significant contribution to current literature on social memory, in particular, by demonstrating how memory becomes a tool for mass media to construct alternate narratives of history and collective memories of the past." - Charlotte Hammond (European Journal of Korean Studies) "<i>Memory Reconstruction</i> is a welcome addition not only for those interested in Korean politics and history but also more broadly for readers interested in learning how democratization and democracy can be fragile under the persistence of the Cold War system and the blunt desires of neoliberal capitalist forces. The book further contributes to a comparative, historical understanding of the Far Right in the East Asian context." - Yoonkyung Lee (Journal of Asian Studies) "<i>Memory Construction and the Politics of Time in Neoliberal South Korea</i> opens new avenues for the study of neoliberalism and social memory. Lee does an admirable job of providing empirically and theoretically rich accounts of collective memory in post-1987 South Korea. By offering a cultural history of the 1990s and 2000s, the book deepens our understanding of South Korea’s ongoing turn to right-wing populism." - Bohyeong Kim (Acta Koreana)
Notes on Romanization and Translations xi
Introduction: The Politics of Time and Neoliberal Disavowal 1
1. The Paradigm Shift from Minjung (People) to Simin (Citizen) and Neoliberal Governance 23
2. The Paradigm Shift from the Political to the Cultural and Huildam Literature 45
3. Park Chung-hee Syndrome, Mass Media, and “Culture War” 71
4. The Rise of New Right Historiography and Its Triumphalist Discourse 95
Epilogue: Politics of Time and the Poetics of Remembrance 121
Notes 137
Bibliography 177
Index 207