University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2016 Colonial Korea and the Olympic Games, 1910–1945 Seok Lee University of Pennsylvania,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Asian History Commons, and the Kinesiology Commons Recommended Citation Lee, Seok, "Colonial Korea and the Olympic Games, 1910–1945" (2016). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1836. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1836 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1836 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Colonial Korea and the Olympic Games, 1910–1945 Abstract This dissertation examines how Koreans received and consumed the Olympic Games under Japanese colonial rule (1910–1945). Although a growing body of research on colonial Korea addresses a range of topics beyond politics and economy, sports is still a relatively neglected topic in this field. By exploring Olympic fever in colonial Korea, this study shows how multifaceted aspects of Korean society became a part of the global sports world. Korean athletes participated in the 1932 Summer, 1936 Winter, and 1936 Summer Games as part of the Japanese delegation, attracting much attention from members of all walks of life in colonial Korea. Public figures as varied as political leaders, intellectuals, sport journalists, and athletes recognized and promoted the Games through the burgeoning mass media. As the Olympic Games were a powerful tool for promoting Korean nationalism, Korean athletes’ performance was in the spotlight of Korean vernacular media, which also pursued commercial interests in featuring scandals of athletes. Nevertheless, many advocates of public gymnastics criticized what they perceived as the bourgeois-oriented, if not elitist, nature of the Games.