Jie-Hyun Lim (Korean: 임지현 'im-chi-hyŏn''

Hanja Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom. (, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, ...

: 林志弦; born 1959) is a South Korean historian, writer, and "memory activist."Seung-jun Kwon, “A Historian Who Fights Narrow Nationalism: Why Did He Open the Holocaust Gypsy Exhibition? ��협한 민족주의와 싸우는 역사학자, 홀로코스트 집시展 연 까닭은?�� ''Daily Chosun'', 16 February 2019. https://www.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2019/02/15/2019021501743.html.Tae-hoon Kim, “Memory Is the Power to Blast the Dichotomous History ��억은 이분법적 역사에 파열음을 내는 힘” ''The Kyunghyang Shinmun'', 30 May 2020, https://m.khan.co.kr/national/national-general/article/202005301203011#c2b. He is a full professor of transnational history and the director of the Critical Global Studies Institute at

Sogang University Sogang University (SU, Hangul: 서강대학교 Hanja: 西江大學校, literally "West River University") is one of the most prestigious private research universities in Seoul, South Korea. It was established in 1960 by the Wisconsin Province of ...

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 of ...

, who conceptualized paradigms of "Mass Dictatorship"Yun-ju Lee, “Jie-Hyun Lim, From ‘Mass Dictatorship’ to ‘the Transnational’ ��지현, ‘대중독재’서 ‘트랜스내셔널’로” ''Weekly Hankook'', 23 March 2011. http://weekly.hankooki.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=4185294.Jung-mo Gu, “How Were ‘Fascism in Us’ and ‘Mass Dictatorship’ Born? 우리 안의 파시즘'·'대중독재'는 어떻게 태어났나�� ''Yonhap News Agency'', 14 December 2016. https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20161214127300005.Dong-kyu Kim, "Ji-Hyun Lim, a Professor at Hanyang University, Listed on ‘Marquis Who’s Who' ��지현 한양대 교수, '마르퀴즈 후즈 후' 등재" ''Yonhap News Agency'', 4 December 2013. https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20131204052800004 and "Victimhood Nationalism."Sang-hyun Park, “Can Conflicts Be Sealed When All Ethnicities Are Victims? ��든 민족이 '피해자'인 시대…갈등은 봉합될 수 있을까�� ''Yonhap News Agency'', 11 August 2021. https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20210811148000005.Young-hee Kim et al., “ ews analysisThe comfort women movement at crossroads after 30 years,” ''The Hankyoreh'', 27 May 2020.https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/946751.html.Hye-in Lee, "‘Is Korea a Sheer Victim of Foreign Power?’: Professor Ji-Hyun Lim, the Author of ''Victimhood Nationalism'' ��한국은 외세의 피해자이기만 한가요?” ‘희생자의식 민족주의’ 쓴 임지현 교수" ''The Kyunghyang Shinmun'', 16 August 2021. https://m.khan.co.kr/culture/culture-general/article/202108161945001#c2b. Since Lim founded the Research Institute of Comparative History and Culture in 2004,Hye-jin Bae, “Professor Lim Ji-Hyun, Director of the Comparative History and Culture Research Institute ��교역사문화연구소 소장 임지현 교수” ''News H'', 15 April 2011. http://www.newshyu.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=6804. he has carried out a series of international projects, including the "East Asian History Forum for Criticism and Solidarity" and the "Flying University of Transnational Humanities."Joong-ho Choi. “Into Transnational Humanities.” ''News H'', 15 April 2011. http://www.newshyu.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=6813. Lim has written and edited around two dozen books, including ''Global Easts: Remembering, Imagining, Mobilizing'' (Columbia University Press, 2022), ''Everyday Fascism'' (우리 안의 파시즘, 2000), and ''Victimhood Nationalism'' (희생자의식 민족주의, 2021). He is a co-editor of ''Gender Politics and Mass Dictatorship: Global Perspectives'' (2011), ''Mass Dictatorship and Memory as Ever Present Past: Mass Dictatorship in the 20th Century'' (2014), ''The Palgrave Handbook of Mass Dictatorship'' (2016), and ''Mnemonic Solidarity: Global Interventions'' (2021), among other works. Lately, Lim has been delving into the field of “transnational history nd memoryas an alternative narrative to the national ne” asserting that memory beneath history should be deterritorialized.“From Western History to Miscellaneous History and Memory Activism in Postcolonial Korea – An Interview With Jie-Hyun Lim.” ''Comparativ'', vol. 26, no. 6, Dec. 2016, pp. 107-24. p.124. https://www.comparativ.net/v2/article/download/521/443/788. He is also conceptualizing "Global Easts" that are neither

Global North Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to: Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989 * ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015 * Bruno ...

nor Global South, thereby developing the problem consciousness of his 2022 publication from the perspective of the global history of

modernity Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the "Age of Reas ...

Life

Early life

Ji-Hyun Lim was born in 1959 in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

, not long after the conclusion of the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

(1950⎼1953).Young-sik Hwang, “People Who Think outside the Box (9): Professor Ji-Hyun Lim, Hanyang University ��정관념을 깨는 사람들 <9>: 한양대 임지현 교수” ''The Hankook Ilbo'', 28 May 2004. https://www.hankookilbo.com/News/Read/200405280017364645. At that time, the Military coup d'état in May 1961 established

Park Chung Hee Park Chung-hee (, ; 14 November 1917 – 26 October 1979) was a South Korean politician and army general who served as the dictator of South Korea from 1961 until his assassination in 1979; ruling as an unelected military strongman from 1961 ...

’s regime (1961⎼1979) of Development Dictatorship, with its gilded slogans—“Korean way of democracy” and “the National Regeneration” (''Yu-shin'' Constitution). As Lim retrospects, “ e shattered Cold War constellation provided the conditions for Park to proclaim a state of emergency, which rationalized the shift from

democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...

dictatorship A dictatorship is a form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, which holds governmental powers with few to no limitations on them. The leader of a dictatorship is called a dictator. Politics in a dictatorship a ...

,” in which “the individual selves voluntarily sacrifice themselves for the higher self or absolute ego of the nation.”Jie-Hyun Lim, “Introduction: Between Two Global Easts,” in ''Global Easts: Remembering, Imagining, Mobilizing'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022). In 1977 when Lim was attending

as a history student and university newspaper reporter, a police investigator visited Lim's house because he was a member of “Red Clay” (황토 'hwang-t'o'', a clandestine anti-autocracy circle of

.Jae-seok Ko, "Ji-Hyun Lim, 'Cho Kuk and Lim Jong-Seok; If They Are Genuine Leftists, They Should Be Ashamed' ��지현 '조국·임종석, 진짜 좌파라면 부끄러워할 줄 알아야'" ''Shindongah'', 21 August 2020. https://shindonga.donga.com/3/all/13/2155964/1 This experience led Lim to learn about his late grandfather’s past as a troika of the

Korean Communist Party The Korean Communist Party () was a communist political party organized in Shanghai, China and Irkutsk, Russia in 1921. It has its origins in the Siberian region after the Russian Revolution. It dissolved in 1922. Background It was an or ...

and an independence fighter during the Japanese occupation.Jie-Hyun Lim, ''Doing History'' ��사를 어떻게 할 것인가: 어느 사학자의 에고 히스토리(Seoul: Sonamoo Publishing ��나무 2016), 14. Lim confesses in his autobiography, ''Doing History'' (역사를 어떻게 할 것인가: 어느 사학자의 에고 히스토리, 2016), that he has always thought of his academic pursuit as participating in his grandfather's “inner exile.” After the outbreak of the

Gwangju Uprising The Gwangju Uprising was a popular uprising in the city of Gwangju, South Korea, from May 18 to May 27, 1980, which pitted local, armed citizens against soldiers and police of the South Korean government. The event is sometimes called 5·18 (M ...

(1980), Lim felt a strong sense of survivor's

shame Shame is an unpleasant self-conscious emotion often associated with negative self-evaluation; motivation to quit; and feelings of pain, exposure, distrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness. Definition Shame is a discrete, basic emotion, d ...

, which spurred him to study Marxist intellectual history as a graduate student at

. Above all, Lim wanted to establish "South Korean social science" or "South Korean Western history” based on the problem consciousness of his society, where the aftermath of the

came as too heavy a task for South Korean historians.Jie-Hyun Lim, ''Doing History'' ��사를 어떻게 할 것인가: 어느 사학자의 에고 히스토리(Seoul: Sonamoo Publishing ��나무 2016). In 1989, he finalized his dissertation, “

Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

and

Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
''

Hanyang University Hanyang University (Korean: 한양대학교) is a private research university in South Korea. The main campus is located in Seoul and its satellite campus, the Education Research Industry Cluster (ERICA campus), is in Ansan. ''Hanyang'' (한양 ...

, and later served as the chair of the history department from 1997 to 1999. Meanwhile, Lim was a visiting professor at the

Pedagogical University of Cracow The Pedagogical University of Cracow ( pl, Uniwersytet Pedagogiczny im. Komisji Edukacji Narodowej w Krakowie, UP), is named after the Commission of National Education created by King Stanisław August Poniatowski. It is a public university locate ...

in the 1990s. In this post-communist

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, he witnessed the Polish transition from

real socialism Real socialism, better known as actually existing socialism or developed socialism (), was an ideological catchphrase popularized during the Brezhnev era in the Eastern Bloc countries and the Soviet Union.

to a market economy and democracy, regarded by the Polish people as “a stubborn rightist” because of his Luxembourgian

Marxism Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...

. Compared with Lim's twenties in postcolonial

, where he imagined Korea's transition to

socialism Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...

and looked at the rapid economic growth of Korea as “an angry young leftist,” his stay in

was the opposite experience. Lim acknowledges that such contrasting observations on the edges of

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both Geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The modern State (polity), states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. ...

and

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...

have been valuable assets in exploring the periphery of global history: it allowed him “to escape the intellectual complacency, be it leftist or rightist, of Cold War politics.” From 2004 to 2015, Lim was the founding director of the Research Institute of Comparative History and Culture at

. In March 2015, Lim became a professor of Transnational History at

, and the same year, he founded the Critical Global Studies Institute. Other career milestones of Lim include being a visiting scholar at Harvard Yenching Institute (2002⎼2003),

International Research Center for Japanese Studies The , or Nichibunken (日文研), is an inter-university research institute in Kyoto. Along with the National Institute of Japanese Literature, the National Museum of Japanese History, and the National Museum of Ethnology, it is one of the Nati ...

(2009⎼2010),

EHESS The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (french: École des hautes études en sciences sociales; EHESS) is a graduate ''grande école'' and '' grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. The ...

(2010),"History - Faculty: Jie-Hyun Lim," ''Sogang University'', n.d. https://ehistory.sogang.ac.kr/ehistory/ehistory02_1_7.html Paris II University (2014),

Bielefeld University Bielefeld University (german: Universität Bielefeld) is a university in Bielefeld, Germany. Founded in 1969, it is one of the country's newer universities, and considers itself a "reform" university, following a different style of organization ...

(2017),

National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU; ) is a public research university in Taiwan. It was created in 2021 through the merger of National Yang-Ming University and National Chiao Tung University. At present, there are 19 colleges, 74 un ...

(2017),

Hitotsubashi University is a national university located in Tokyo, Japan. It has campuses in Kunitachi, Kodaira, and Chiyoda. One of the top 9 Designated National University in Japan, Hitotsubashi is a relatively small institution specialized solely in social science ...

(2018), Paris X University (2019), GWZO (2019), and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

(2020); external professor at the

University of Glamorgan , image_name = University of Glamorgan arms.png , image_size = 220px , caption = University of Glamorgan coat of arms , motto = Success Through Endeavour , established = , closed = , administrative_staff = , chancellor = John Morris ...

(2002⎼2003); research fellow at Wissenschaftskolleg (2011⎼2012).

Work

Transnationalism

In the 1990s, Jie-Hyun Lim juxtaposed Polish and Korean national histories, exploring each narrative's broken sutures. Through this transnational interaction, Lim could critically contemplate South Korean

nationalism Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...

based on its parallel with the Polish nationalist movement. One of his books that demystifies the nationalist imaginary is ''Beyond Nationalism'' (민족주의는 반역이다, 1999). This book tried to remove the fictive resistance ideology from the

ethnic nationalism Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric (and in some cases an ethnocratic) approach to various politi ...

, highlighting the shared texture between political power and

. In addition, it paved the way for Lim's later thoughts regarding postcolonialism, subaltern research, and post-Marxist theories. In the 2000s, Lim's transnational inquisitiveness was stretched into the theme of “border history.” From those years, China had been pushing its Northeast Project, insisting that the history of

Goguryeo Goguryeo (37 BC–668 AD) ( ) also called Goryeo (), was a Korean kingdom located in the northern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula and the southern and central parts of Northeast China. At its peak of power, Goguryeo controlled mos ...

, an ancient kingdom on the

Korean Peninsula Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

across the northeast part of the modern Chinese domain, is theirs. Lim looked at this controversy differently than his South Korean contemporaries, borrowing

Thongchai Winichakul Thongchai Winichakul ( th, ธงชัย วินิจจะกูล; , ; born 1957), is a Thai historian and researcher of Southeast Asian studies. He is professor emeritus of Southeast Asian history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison ...

’s concept of “geo-body,” the nationalist perception of contemporary territory as its synchronic, timeless body.Min-kwan Park, "Humanities Lecture with Great Scholars (8): A Debate on ‘Korea in East Asian History ��학과 함께하는 인문강좌 (8): '동아시아 역사상의 한국' 토론회" The Kyunghyang Shinmun, 28 July 2014. https://news.v.daum.net/v/20140727213509962 In Lim's opinion, the history of

was neither Chinese nor Korean history;Ung Jo, "'The History of Goguryeo Is neither Korean nor Chinese History 고구려사는 한국사도 중국사도 아니다'" ''Media Today'', 2 September 2004. http://www.mediatoday.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=30564 instead, it should be counted as border history, overlapping history, or regional history. That is, to make this territorial dispute a rational and productive debate, both

and China must overcome the compulsion of a “geo-body,” the tendency to be relieved only by incorporating the history of the border areas into its

national history Historiography is the study of how history is written. One pervasive influence upon the writing of history has been nationalism, a set of beliefs about political legitimacy and cultural identity. Nationalism has provided a significant framework ...

. Since the 2010s, Lim has held the “Flying University of Transnational Humanities,” a trans-institutional summer school program for PhDs and doctoral students. Its main objective is to liberate humanistic imagination from the boundary of the

national state A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group. A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may inc ...

by building transnational solidarity. In particular, Lim aimed to encourage trans-disciplinary conversations beyond interdisciplinary ones, resisting the top-down process of

globalization Globalization, or globalisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is the process of foreign relation ...

led by the capital and political power. For this reason, Lim argues that this project's aspiration to create a global network of transnational humanities research and education is theoretically rooted in the critical rationale of postcolonialism. Most recently, Lim has been summoning his memory of the

post-communist Post-communism is the period of political and economic transformation or transition in former communist states located in Eastern Europe and parts of Africa and Asia in which new governments aimed to create free market-oriented capitalist economi ...

in the 1990s, where he recognized striking similarities between Korean and Polish history and politics. One realization stood out: both Korea and Poland—at once the “West” for Asia yet “Eastern Europe''—had been assigned the role of “East.” In his ''Global Easts: Remembering, Imagining, Mobilizing'' (2022), Lim explores such entangled Easts to reconsider global history from the margins, drawing out commonalities in their experiences of

, their transitions from

, and the shaping of

collective memory Collective memory refers to the shared pool of memories, knowledge and information of a social group that is significantly associated with the group's identity. The English phrase "collective memory" and the equivalent French phrase "la mémoire c ...

. This line of discussion encompasses Lim's recent paradigms: "mass dictatorship" and "victimhood nationalism." In other words, Lim criticizes mass dictatorships of the right and left in the Global Easts, considering

Carl Schmitt Carl Schmitt (; 11 July 1888 – 7 April 1985) was a German jurist, political theorist, and prominent member of the Nazi Party. Schmitt wrote extensively about the effective wielding of political power. A conservative theorist, he is noted as ...

’s idea of sovereign

and the concept of decisionist

. Additionally, ranging across

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, Japan, and

, Lim traces how notions of victimhood have become central to

.Hye-in Lee, "Ji-Hyun Lim, a Professor at Sogang University Who Published ‘Victimhood Nationalism,’ Says, 'We Should Go beyond the ‘Victimhood Discourse’ Regarding the Issue of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery' ��희생자의식 민족주의’ 펴낸 임지현 서강대 교수 “위안부 문제, 이젠 ‘희생자 담론’ 넘어서야”" ''The Kyunghyang Shinmun'', 16 August 2021. https://www.khan.co.kr/culture/book/article/202108162131005 Finally, Lim argues that

is inherently transnational, critiquing how the nationalist imagination of the Global Easts has influenced countries across borders.

Mass Dictatorship

Jie-Hyun Lim’s awareness of “Mass Dictatorship” (“대중독재” 'tae-chung-tok-chae'' 大衆獨裁), or grass-roots fascism, germinated in 1999 when the

Kim Dae-Jung Kim Dae-jung (; ; 6 January 192418 August 2009), was a South Korean politician and activist who served as the eighth president of South Korea from 1998 to 2003. He was a 2000 Nobel Peace Prize recipient for his work for democracy and human ...

government announced its project to build the

Memorial Hall. On the bright side, this was a gesture of democratic peace toward the autocratic past, but Lim interpreted it as "an arrogance that regards social memory as something that may be solved with personal forgiveness and reconciliation." Thus, Lim posed a problem against this consecration of historical memory, recognizing Park's modernization as a “Market Stalinism.” However, such critical awareness did not cross the threshold of academia, and the nostalgia for the Park Regime seemed only to grow in Korean society. Hence, Lim began to explore in his serial articles of ''Contemporary Criticism'' (당대비평) why the public misses the oppressive system. In these writings, which were later published as a separate volume, ''Everyday Fascism'' (2000), Lim discusses the routinized and even desired

, arguing that democratic changes in social structure, economic system, laws, political parties, and social organization do not necessarily guarantee the genuine

. Also, he insists that unless the fascist fabric of South Korean society that binds people's daily lives fundamentally changes, its democratization of the 1990s is bound to be reversible. For this reason, Lim demanded the deconstruction of

’s internalized and structuralized power code: the ideological fictions. That is to say, the fight against the dictatorship should go on, replacing the habitus of vertical “ dominance” with the habitus of “ fraternity.” In the 2000s, Lim published the ''Mass Dictatorship'' series (대중독재 1,2,3; 2004–2007) in his capacity as a chief editor. This project was with other South Korean historians specializing in

fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...

, Franco regime,

Action française Action may refer to: * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video game Film * Action film, a genre of film * ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford * ''Action'' (1980 fil ...

, and Stalinism. Beyond this, there have been six important publications in English on this subject: Gender Politics and Mass Dictatorship: ''Global Perspectives'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), ''Mass Dictatorship and Modernity'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), ''Imagining Mass Dictatorships: The Individual and the Masses in Literature and Cinema'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), ''Mass Dictatorship and Memory as Ever Present Past'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), ''The Palgrave Handbook of Mass Dictatorship'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), and ''Everyday Life in Mass Dictatorship: Collusion and Evasion'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). These works criticize the demonizing logic of existing dictatorship studies, which sets a Manichean dichotomy of “an evil power oppresses good citizens,” whether right-wing or left-wing discourse.

Victimhood nationalism

“Victimhood nationalism” is Jie-Hyun Lim's most recent paradigm, which again questions the nationalist antagonism based on collective affiliation, or whether collective and hereditary guilt/victimhood can be established.Jie-Hyun Lim, ''Victimhood Nationalism'' ��생자의식 민족주의 - 고통을 경쟁하는 지구적 기억 전쟁 Seoul: Humanist, 2021. In his ''Victimhood Nationalism'' (2021), Lim sharply pinpoints the politicized sense of victimhood with controversial examples, including the long-stood binary of

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

and Japan (“Korean victims” versus “Japanese perpetrators” of the colonial occupation). Lim argues that such a nationalist equation is both right and wrong because no country is made up of purely victims or perpetrators. In other words, the global memory space is transnationally designed with political facts and statistics that are never value-neutral. To prove this, Lim collected data from different corners of the global memory space, including diplomatic documents, academic discussions, press, testimonials, popular culture, and social media, regarding two regional groups:

(Poland–Germany–Israel) and

(Korea–Japan–the U.S.). Through such comparative analysis, he explores how the competing narratives of victimhood are produced and consumed, proving that “Victimhood Nationalism” is inherently a transnational and planetary discourse. While Lim propels forward “from history to memory” as such, being a “memory activist” who restores the authenticity of memories that have been repressed over a long time, it is notable that his theory of "victimhood nationalism" is from the periphery of global modernity, based on the real experiences of

and

; it does not settle for an unequal academic division of labor, in which the West presents theories, and the East provides empirical data to them. In 2022, Vi''ctimhood Nationalism'' was translated into Japanese, which is acclaimed that "

he Japanese He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

will not be able to greet August ( the month when Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II) without mentioning this book."

Criticism

In 2004, Jie-Hyun Lim suggested a transnational viewpoint regarding the dispute over Goguryeo history, insisting on deconstructing the concept of

. To this, some scholars condemned him as ignoring

’s long-standing

national identity National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or to one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...

as "the successor of

," which has continued since the Goryo Dynasty, emphasizing that Lim specializes in "

Western history The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.

," not Korean history discipline. Also, when Lim argued that the masses agreed upon President Park’s

like other 20th-century fascisms, he was heavily criticized by the nationalist leftists in

. They blamed Lim’s theory of "Everyday

Fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...

" as

fundamentalism Fundamentalism is a tendency among certain groups and individuals that is characterized by the application of a strict literal interpretation to scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, along with a strong belief in the importance of distinguish ...

or "progressive nihilism" that blankets the troubles of political

,Hyung-chan Kim, "True Progressives?: Ji-Hyun Lim and Jin-Woo Lee Oppose Kang Joon Mann’s Criticism ��정한 진보?: 임지현-이진우씨, 강준만씨 비판 반론" ''The Dong-A Daily News'', 1 May 2000. https://www.donga.com/news/Culture/article/all/20000501/7530659/1 even judging it as reducing everything to a matter of etiquette and being in sympathy with the far right. However, the essential idea of Lim is not to overlook the moral issues found in historical figuresJae-Seung Jung, "People Whom Jae-Seung Jung Met: Historian Prof. Ji-Hyun Lim (2) ‘Lee Myung-Bak Government Is a Dictatorship? It’s Democracy!' ��재승이 만난 사람들: 역사학자 임지현 교수 편② '이명박이 독재라고? 민주주의죠!'" ''Channel Yes 24'', 13 June 2011. https://ch.yes24.com/Article/View/17503 but rather to theorize the hegemonic power of ideology that dominates the daily lives of the masses. Similar criticism arose when Lim first used the concept of "Victimhood Nationalism" in 2007, shedding a different light on the fuss around the novel '' So Far from the Bamboo Grove'' (1986) by Yoko Kawashima Watkins, a Japanese American writer.Jie-Hyun Lim, "Victimhood Nationalism and History Reconciliation in East Asia," ''History Compass'', vol. 8, no. 1 (2010), pp.3-5. Since this story illustrates the suffering of Japanese refugees returning home from emancipated Korea, portraying Koreans as evil perpetrators and Japanese as innocent victims, critics accused it of hiding the history of the Japanese colonization of the Korean peninsula. Nevertheless, Lim argued that such a collective denunciation of Korean people toward this work is instead an overreaction to deny the uncomfortable truth—not because Watkins’ decontextualization of the main characters' lives is unproblematic, but because this narrative is undeniably an authentic memory of some Japanese people. This criticism inspired Lim to point out the antagonistic symbiosis between the victim nation and the perpetrator nation, or, in other words, the transnational nature of “Victimhood Nationalism.”

Selected publications

Authored books

* ''Global Easts: Remembering-Imagining-Practicing'' (2022)

Edited books

* ''Mnemonic Solidarity-Global Interventions'' (2021) * ''The Palgrave Handbook of Mass Dictatorship'' (2016) * ''Mass Dictatorship and Memory as Ever Present Past'' (2014) * ''Gender Politics and Mass Dictatorship: Global Perspectives'' (2011)

Book chapters

* “Introduction: Mnemonic Solidarity,” ''Mnemonic Solidarity-Global Interventions'' (2021) * “Postcolonial Reflections on the Mnemonic Confluence of the Holocaust, Stalinist Crimes, ad Colonialism,” ''Mnemonic Solidarity-Global Interventions'' (2021) * “Nationalizing the Bolshevik Revolution Transnationally: Non-Western Modernization among Proletarian Nations,” ''The Global Impacts of Russia’s Great War and Revolution, Book 2: The Wider Arc of Revolution, Part 2'' (2019) * “Transnational Memory Formation: Memory-History-Culture,” ''The Routledge Companion to World Literature and World History'' (2018) * “World History, Nationally: How has the national appropriated the transnational in East Asian historiography?,” ''Global History, Globally'' (2018) * “Afterword: entangled memories of the Second World War,” ''Remembering the Second World War'' (2017) * “Introduction” and "Victimhood," ''The Palgrave Handbook of Mass Dictatorship'' (2016) * “Nationalism and History,” ''The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity and Nationalism'' (2015) * “Second World War in Global Memory Space,” ''Cambridge History of Second World War'' (2015) * “Mass dictatorship as a transnational formation,” ''Modernity and Mass Dictatorship'' (2013) * “Introduction: Coming to Terms with the Past of Mass Dictatorships,” ''Mass Dictatorship and Memory as Ever Present Past'' (2014) * “Victimhood nationalism in coming to terms with the mass dictatorship,” ''Mass Dictatorship and Memory as Ever Present Past'' (2014) * * “Towards a Transnational History of Victimhood Nationalism: On the Trans-Pacific Space,” ''The Trans-Pacific Imagination: Rethinking Boundary, Culture and Society'' (2012) * “Historicizing the World in East Asia,” ''A Companion to World History'' (2012) * “Nationalism, Neo-Nationalism,” ''Encyclopedia of Global Studies'' (2012) * “Introduction: Meandering between Self-empowerment and Self-mobilisation,” ''Gender Politics and Mass Dictatorship: Global Perspectives'' (2011) * “Series Introduction: Mapping Mass Dictatorship: Towards a Transnational History of Twentieth-Century Dictatorship,” ''Gender Politics and Mass Dictatorship: Global Perspectives'' (2011) * “Victimhood Nationalism in Contested Memories: National Mourning and Global Accountability,” ''Memory in a Global Age: Discourses, Practices and Trajectories'' (2010)

Articles

* “Triple Victimhood: On the Mnemonic Confluence of the Holocaust, Stalinist Crime, and Colonial Genocide,” ''

Journal of Genocide Research The ''Journal of Genocide Research'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering studies of genocide. Established in 1999, for the first six years it was not peer-reviewed. Since December 2005, it is the official journal of the Interna ...

'' (2020) * “Mnemonic Solidarity in the Global Memory Space,” ''Global-e'' (2019) * “What is Critical in Critical Global Studies?,” ''Global-e'' (2017) * “History Education and Nationalist Phenomenology in East Asia,” '' Global Asia'' (2015) * “Transnational History of Victimhood Nationalism-On the Transpacific Space," ''Studia Politologica'' (2014) * “A Postcolonial Reading of the Sonderweg: Marxist Historicism Revisited,” ''Journal of Modern European History'' (2014) * “Mass Dictatorship – A Transnational Formation of Modernity,” ''Moving the Social: Journal of Social History and the History of Social Movements'' (2012) * “Victimhood Nationalism and History Reconciliation in East Asia,” ''

History Compass ''History Compass'' is a peer-reviewed online-only academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell. Originally launched in association with the Institute of Historical Research (London), it is unique in its purpose and structure, aiming to "solve th ...

'' (2010) * “Appendix: Introduction to TMPR special issue 6.3, ‘Political Religions and Sacralisation of Politics,” ''

Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions ''Politics, Religion & Ideology'' is a quarterly Peer review, peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on the politics of illiberal democracy, illiberal ideologies, including the impact of religious radicalism. It is published by Taylor & F ...

'' (2007) * “Historiographical Perspectives on ‘Mass Dictatorship,’” ''

'' (2005). * “Conference Report: Coercion and Consent: A Comparative Study of ‘Mass Dictatorship’” ''

Contemporary European History ''Contemporary European History'' is an international peer-reviewed academic history journal, published by Cambridge University Press quarterly since 1992 and covering the history of Europe from 1918 onwards. Currently its editors are Dr Ludivine ...

'' (2004) * “Coercion and Consent: A Comparative Study on Mass Dictatorship,” ''Potsdamer Bulletin fuer Zeithistorische Studien'' (2004)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lim, Jie-Hyun South Korean historians 1959 births South Korean academic administrators Living people Academic staff of Sogang University