Janet Poole

Janet Poole's research and teaching interests lie in literary and aesthetic forms in the broad context of colonialism and modernity, in histories and theories of translation, and in the creative practice of literary translation. Her most recent book, Patterns of the Heart and Other Stories, presents an introduction to the little known modernist writer Ch’oe Myŏngik (1903-?). Born and based in Pyongyang throughout his career, Ch’oe’s work lovingly details life in that city and chronicles the hopes and dreams for a new society in the age of decolonisation. A dedicated literary translator, Poole has also translated works by the mid-twentieth century writer Yi T’aejun (1904-?). A collection of his anecdotal essays written during the Asia-Pacific War, Eastern Sentiments, offers a quirky take on everyday life in 1930s Korea: wistful, nostalgic and violently colonial. A selection of Yi's short stories written between 1925 and 1950, by which time he had moved to North Korea, appeared as Dust and Other Stories. The latter was awarded a residency fellowship from the Banff International Literary Translation Centre.

A new book project, “Decolonizing Style: Going North and the History of Korean Modernism,” looks at the writings of Korea’s modernist writers and artists who crossed the 38th parallel into what was to become the Democratic People’s Republic in the late 1940s. A study of decolonization as a literary event, the project was awarded a SSHRC Insight Grant in 2017 and a Chancellor Jackman Faculty Research Fellowship in 2020. The project follows upon an earlier study of modernist responses to the fascist regime of the late colonial era, When the Future Disappears: The Modernist Imagination in Late Colonial Korea. The book explored the possibilities of art under the harshest of political regimes, the shaping power of colonial fascism and the creative arts that emerged from its midst. It was awarded the Modernist Studies Association Book Prize (2015) and Honorable Mention for the Association of Asian Studies James B. Palais Prize (2016). A discussion of the book can be found in an episode of the Korea and the World podcast.