1960s Jo Dong-il's Study of Oral Literature and Korean Studies Renaissance

Abstract

From the late 1960s, Jo Dong-il reconstructed the tradition of Korean literature subjectively under the consciousness of the continuity of classical literature and modern literature, deepened the growth of class consciousness and public consciousness, and explored the possibility of reality-participating literature. ‘Local literature’ was rediscovered in an attempt to elevate Korean literature to a global level while simultaneously overcoming Western centrism and ethnocentrism. It is no exaggeration to say that it was the beginning of an ambitious plan to recapture the universality of local literature, i.e. national literature on the premise of universal/special hierarchy. Under this critical mind, he recalls his early research as a sub-literature and discusses the need for local literature research through this. In order to examine the theory and practice of Jo Dong-il, who tried to specialize in local literature as a sub-category of world literature, the first task was to analyze the research support from the Ministry of Education and the route of US aid as conditions for the boom of Korean Studies research in the 1960s.