The Intimacies of Conflict

“The Korean War is often dubbed the Forgotten War, as it took place between the two larger conflicts of World War II and the Vietnam War. Kim. Kim provides an interpretation of how this ‘forgotten war’ was remembered through a variety of mediums, including motion pictures and novels … Highly recommended.” (Library Journal) “A learned, eloquent, and necessary account of the significance of the Korean War for race relations in the U.S. The study is remarkable for the depth and wealth of knowledge it exhibits on the cultures of this conflict, from the period of its unfolding to the present – all rendered with nuance and in Daniel Kim’s masterful style.” (Josephine Park, author of Cold War Friendships: Korea, Vietnam, and Asian American Literature) “Daniel Kim’s The Intimacies of Conflict provides a new approach to our understanding of the Korean War, which has been poorly remembered outside of Korea despite its devastating human losses. Working with consummate skill through novels, films, and photos, Kim approaches the war through the perspectives of Koreans, Asian Americans, and people of color, asserting throughout that the cultural memories of war belong to more than just generals, soldiers, and white men. The Intimacies of Conflict is a crucial new work in our understanding of how the Korean War continues to reverberate through history, memory, and feeling.” (Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Sympathizer) “The book will become a must-read for all serious scholars of the Korean War. Kim’s thoughtful analysis and fluid writing help him skillfully weave together a diverse set of literary and cinematic works. With its emphasis on previously unexplored aspects of the war’s cultural legacy, The Intimacies of Conflict enables us to better understand just how profoundly the conflict reshaped the individuals and nations that fought in it.” (The Journal of Asian Studies) “

Part of an increasingly robust turn toward the cold war in American studies, Intimacies of
Conflict denies that compulsion to forget and ambitiously recuperates the importance of
the Korean War in a squarely US and Asian American studies context. Woven together
with muscular readings of texts, films, and memorial sites, Intimacies makes the case for
rethinking the Korean War’s centrality in US racial and geopolitical projects and in Asian
American postmemorial reconstitution.

Daniel Y. Kim is Associate Professor of English at Brown University where he teaches classes in Asian American literature, American literature and Ethnic Studies. He has also taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor of American Studies at Yale University and as a Norman Freehling Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan’s Institute for the Humanities. He is the author of Writing Manhood in Black and Yellow: Ralph Ellison, Frank Chin, and the Literary Politics of Identity (2006) and the co-editor (with Crystal Parikh) of The Cambridge Companion to Asian American Literature (2015). His essays have been published in a number of journals including American Literary History, Criticism, Cross-Currents, Journal of Asian American Studies, Novel and positions.

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