Abstract
Through a close reading of Japanese public works projects in precolonial and colonial Korea — focusing on railway construction and street improvement projects — this talk maps the intersection of imperialism and the environment. In th e name of “development\,” Japanese colonial engineers and urban planners se t to work reshaping Korea’s physical landscapes through public works projec ts: laying railways\, restoring rural highways\, improving rivers\, constru cting ports\, burying water systems\, and paving urban streets. Engineered with projects designed to solidify claims to territory\, reify discourses of colonial modernization\, and project cultural superiority\, Japanese col onial rule in Korea was built as much on the domination of colonial environ ments as it was on the control of colonial populations.
About the Speaker
Tristan R. Grunow is Assistant Professor withou t Review in the History Department at UBC. Previously\, he was Postdoctora l Fellow at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard Univers ity. He is currently completing a book manuscript entitled Empire by D esign: Tokyo and the Building of Japanese Modernity that charts the re spacing of the built environment of Tokyo under the process of Japanese sta te-formation and empire-building. This talk builds from his recent publica tion\, “Paving Power: Western Urban Planning and Imperial Space from the St reets of Meiji Tokyo to Colonial Seoul” published in the Journal of Urb an History.
LOCATION:Room 604\, Asian Centre GEO:49.266835;-123.258576 URL;VALUE=URI:https://sppga.ubc.ca/events/event/engineering-empire-public-w orks-the-environment-and-japanese-colonialism-in-korea-1894-1945/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://sppga.cms.arts.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2018/01/grunowlunchtime-final.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Vancouver BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 DTSTART:20171105T090000 TZNAME:PST END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR
