South Korean Democracy

This new book offers a retrospective appraisal of the Gwangju Uprising by academics, activists and artists from Gwangju, Korea. It analyzes the events of the Gwangju uprising, and traces the birth of South Korean democracy in Gwangju's stubborn refusal to accept life without freedom.

Georgy Katsiaficas is Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Na Kahn-chae is Professor of Sociology at Chonnam National University, Gwangju, Korea.

Introduction 1. Remembering the Gwangju Uprising 2. The Socio-Economic Background of the Gwangju Uprising 3. Collective Action and Organization in the Gwangju Uprising 4. Women's Experiences in the Gwangju Uprising: Participation and Exclusion 5. The Gwangju People's Uprising and the Construction of Collective Identity: The Fighters' Bulletin 6. The Shadow of the Gwangju Uprising in the Democratization of Korean Politics 7. The Experience of the May 18th Uprising and the Communal Imagination 8. A New Perspective on the Gwangju People's Resistance Struggle: 1980-1997 9. Comparing the Paris Commune and the Gwangju Uprising