<p>The aim of this paper is to discuss the potentiality of contemporary anthropology, examining the discourse of historical matters between Japan and South Korea from the 1990s to the 2000s. Since the 1990s, colonial historiographies have been taking more notice of the tension between modernity and colonialism, or between the metropole and the colony. We can consider the similar issue of the tension between the postmodern and the postcolonial in contemporary society. As a neoliberal and post-Fordist mode of production spreads globally, the postmodernist theory becomes more conformable to postmodern sovereignty. My argument is that the potential of anthropology exists in its role to intervene intellectually in the asymmetrical relationship between the postmodern and the postcolonial, from a critical viewpoint of colonialism. The main topic of this paper is derived from debates in and around an international group of historical dialogues entitled "Historical Forum for Criticism and Solidarity in East Asia (Hihan to rental no tame no higashi ajia rekishi forum)." It was started in 2001 when the historical textbook controversy swept across East Asia. A distinctive feature of the group is that all the members tried to deconstruct their national histories. It was a kind of intellectual experiment: a "chemical reaction" among the plural streams of historiography, both in Korea and Japan, in the post-Cold War period. Three streams are especially important. The first is post-Marxism. In Japan, the nationwide historical movement called "Postwar History (Sengo rekishigaku)," strongly influenced by Marxism, started in the 1950s. However, it lost its influence in the 1990s, with historians searching for an alternative "new history." In South Korea, Marxist history became influential within the movement opposing the military dictatorship in the 1980s. However, in the 1990s, the achievement of institutional democratization and the collapse of socialist states worldwide brought rapid change to the frame of historiography. The second important stream is a criticism of nationalism. In Japan, the critical history of the nation-state and nation building (kokumin kokka ron) became a trend in the 1990s. In Korea, the criticism of nationalism (minjokchuui) and national history spawned much controversy in the late 1990s. The third stream is a criticism of modernity. In Japan and Korea, modernization and modernity have been considered positive concepts for a long time. However, from the 1990s, historiography influenced by the critical theory of modernity became popular in both countries. When we trace the process of making the modern nation-states of Japan and Korea, we realize that modern Japan was an empire, while modern Korea was a colony. Consequently, a critical history of modernity developed into empire studies and the inquiry of colonial modernity. I also examine three intellectual symptoms as these streams encountered each other in the 2000s. The first is the problem of "national history." The concepts of 'nation' and 'nationalism' are too broad to analyze the reality of East Asia. For example, one member of the historical forum began to take an active part in the "New Right" movement, and also criticized national history in Korea. Why did he join the "New Right," then? The word 'nationalism' hardly distinguishes between national solidarity beyond the two divided Korean nation-states and national identity on one side of the nation-state. The New Right movement in Korea criticizes national history (kuksa) based on ethnic nationalism (minjokchuui), which formed the mainstream of historical description since the 1990s, praising the economic and political development of the Republic of Korea (Taehanminguk). So, when we criticize nationalism and national history, the context is important. We must pay</p><p>(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)</p>