How to Talk to Martians: Socialist vs. Capitalist Science in Korean SF
Speaker: Dafna Zur, Stanford University
Moderator: Victor Seow, Harvard University
Abstract: The 1950 and 60s were decades of dramatic transformation on the Korean peninsula. The newly formed governments of North and South Korea were faced with the challenge of post-war reconstruction on the one hand and competition for the legitimacy of their rule on the other. For both Koreas, kwahak kisul, “science and technology,” promised to deliver the necessary material, economic, and social advances that would secure both internal stability and external dominance. Popular culture was central to the process of national recovery and knowledge dissemination, and general interest magazines—in particular those targeting non-adult readers—became conduits of practical and specialized scientific knowledge. In this talk, I turn my attention to two science fiction novels that were serialized around 1960 in North and South Korea. Read together, the works demonstrate how science and technology became sites of moral and ideological investment. In addition, they provide different answers to a few important questions: what makes a good team, how will nuclear power save us, what should the future look like, and how should one talk to Martians?
About our speaker: Dafna Zur is an Associate Professor of Korean Literature at Stanford University. Her current research focuses on the intersection of science, music, space, and narrative forms. She has published articles on North Korean popular science and science fiction, translations in North Korean literature, the Korean War in children’s literature, childhood in cinema, children’s poetry and music, and popular culture. Her book Figuring Korean Futures: Children’s Literature in Modern Korea (Stanford University Press, 2017), traces the investments and aspirations made possible by children’s literature in colonial and postcolonial Korea.