Abstract

When Kwon In-sook became a symbolic figure representing undongkwon female college students in the late 1980s, a significant shift emerged in the symbolic system of the political subjectivity. This shift is symptomatically reflected in the novels about un-dongkwon female college students in the early 1990s. Kim Insuk’s Kinbam ch’alpke tagaon ach’im(The Long-Night and the Morning Coming Shortly) and Gong Jiyeong’s Kŭrigo kŭdŭrŭi arŭmdaun sijak(And Then, Their Beautiful Beginning), both by female writers with undongkwon backgrounds, explore the issues of undongkwon female college students’ sexuality and violence, and the construction of their political subjectivity. This paper analyzes how the theme of undongkwon female students overcoming their sexuality is codified in the two novels by Kim Insuk and Gong Jiyeong, which had considerable popular influence at the time. Based on this analysis, it elucidates how the hegemony of subjectivity transitions from the ‘sublime morality’ to the ‘romantic ethics’ from the 1980s to the 1990s.