#  American Violence, World Literature 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **March 5, 2026** 

 11:30AM - 01:00PM EST 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **(In-Person) Common Room (#136), 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138**  



 

 



 

*Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar Talks*  
*Co-sponsored by the Harvard Korea Institute*

**Seo Hee Im**  
Associate Professor, English, Hanyang University; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2025-26

Chair/Discussant: **Spencer Lee-Lenfield**, Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University

**Abstract:**  
In the first half of the talk, I uncover how the convention of resolving class conflict with violent spectacle, which will seem run-of-the-mill to anyone with a Netflix subscription, is a singular legacy of American literary history. In the second half, I consider works by Haruki Murakami and Lee Chang-dong that pay explicit tribute to William Faulkner. For the Japanese and Koreans who experienced modernity as an involuntary state to be overcome, the American modernist’s violent narrative solutions proved compelling precisely because the Americans, having played their own furious games of catch-up with the Europeans, had expertise in managing what Thomas Hardy called “the ache of modernity.” This talk is excerpted from a book manuscript provisionally titled *American Violence, World Literature*.

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Fore more information, please visit [here](https://www.harvard-yenching.org/events/american-violence-world-literature/).



 

 



 

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