ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the modern discourse of civilization in colonized Korea disciplined Korean society and justified Japanese colonial rule in the early twentieth century. It analyzes the texts of the Maeil Shinbo, the official daily newspaper of the Japanese government-general in Korea, focusing on the concept of "munmyeong" and its antonym "yaman". The chapter attempts to reveal the basic premises, characteristics, and socio-political roles of the modern discourse of civilization reflected in the Japanese colonial newspaper, in regard to the colonizer-colonized relationship in Korea. It discusses the way of problematizing the level of Korean civilization; the way of designating Japan as civilization and of justifying its rule as civilizational; the occurrence of conflicts between the Japanese and the Koreans over the identities of civilization and barbarism. The chapter examines the characteristics of the discourse of civilization reflected in the Maeil Shinbo in the early period of colonized Korea, focusing on its feature of dominance.
