Abstract

Globally speaking, what “literature” and “literary studies” have meant during the large part of the twentieth century began to change, especially as we entered the twenty-first century, in relation to the multiple changes, such as ever intensifying globalization, the precipitous rise of digital culture and knowledge, transnationalization of area studies perspectives, and increasingly interdisciplinary intellectual inquiries across all fields. This special issue of The Review of Korean Studies considers how Korean literary studies has been reconstructing itself and the ways in which it might continue to re-shape itself in the future. The issue features three articles from both sides of the Pacific: they theorize and exemplify the literary studies’ recent shift toward cross-disciplinary scholarship, both in South Korea and the United States. Briefly, we would like to consider how the rethinking of Korean literary studies and interdisciplinarity, the main concern of this special issue, might be situated, more broadly, in the earlier and contemporary historical contexts.