Ethics of Memory, Memorialization, and Forgetting in the context of post-colonial South Korea: Wrestling with the contesting legacies of the beloved Protestant missionaries Public

Abstract

This thesis makes the case for the need to cultivate fluidity in collective narrative identity as an ethical imperative for exercising memory and memorialization to initiate the process of forgiveness and reconciliation in post-colonial Korea. This thesis explores the question of how we should ethically exercise and exhibit memory in the process of reconciliation with the early Protestant missionaries who have complicated legacies in colonial Korea, by utilizing historical research and anthropological analysis on Yonsei University.

In the first chapter, I argue that although a communal narrative is a powerful moral source in developing a collective identity, memory politics renders such narratives vulnerable to abuse, by canonizing particular memories and disregarding the other narratives. By building upon Alasdair MacIntyre’s narrative self and Paul Ricœur’s abuse of memory, I argue that unity undergirded by memory abuse needs to be critically investigated in a post-colonial context where colonial residues are persisting culturally and structurally.

As a case study, chapter two shows how Yonsei University is constructing institutional identity by utilizing the colonial memories of the early protestant missionaries, embedded in the space, rituals, and performance of the institution. The exercising memory is not a value-neutral phenomenon, but an action that requires ethical reflection.

Chapter three features the Christian missionaries’ cultural colonialism as a counter narrative. Based on the contextual analysis, I argue that the biased exercise of memory that depicts the missionaries only with a positive stroke silences memories of wrongs in the postcolonial context, since it obscures the needs for interrogating colonial residues and for reconciliation.

Finally, I draw from the Christian doctrines of sin and salvation to provide a framework to hold the complicated legacies of the missionaries, and re-orient communal pride from the once-constructed past to the process of growth. I argue that cultivating fluidity in collective self-understanding is an ethical imperative for exercising memory and moralization, in going forward with reconciliation in the context of Yonsei University. Return of suppressed counter memories will assist the once-colonized community with decolonization in the process of sanctification by liberating them from harmful ideologies originating from the colonial era. 

Table of Contents

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….…………… 1

     The Power and Pressing Issues of Memory………………………………………….…………...1

     Motivation and Context……………………….……………………………………….…………5

     Chapter Outline and Methods………………………………………………………….…………6

 

Chapter One: Collective Narrative Identity……………………………………………….………….9

     Toward Collectivity: Narrative Understanding of Self and Embeddedness…………….………...9

     Power Dynamics, Suspicious Unity, and Selected Narratives…………………………………...14

     The Need of Critical Reflection of Collective Narrative Identity………………………………..18

 

Chapter Two: Contested History and the Narrative identity of Yonsei University…………………..21

     Contested History…………………………………………………………………………………22

     Yonsei's Identity Construction……………………………………………………………………29

                   Space: the main garden…………………………………………………………………..30

                   Performance, Rituals, and Recollection………………………………………………….33

                   Speech Acts, Promotion of Virtues………………………………………………………37

                   Presidential Commemorative Speeches………………………………………………….38

 

Chapter Three: Excavating a Hidden Narrative……………………………………………………...43

     Political landscape………………………………………………………………………………..43

     Christian Supremacy……………………………………………………………………………...46

     Searching for Religious Purity……………………………………………………………………49

     Eraser of Rituals, Divorce from Collective Memory……………………………………………..51

     Christian Supremacy and Cultural Colonialism………………………………………………….53

 

Chapter Four: Communal Reconciliation with the Past……………………………………………...54

     Saints or Villains?……………………………………………………………………………...…57

     Communal Pride………………………………………………………………………………….64

 

Conclusion: How do we move forward? …………….…………………………………………...….66

About this Master's Thesis

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School	Candler School of Theology
Department	Divinity
Degree	M.Div.
Submission	Master's Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	History, Asia, Australia and Oceania Ethics Anthropology, Cultural
Mot-clé	theological ethics Korea ethics of memory postcolonial studies evangelism
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Elizabeth M. Bounds, Emory University Ted A. Smith, Emory University

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