Following independence from Japan, Korean intellectuals were faced with the task of establishing a postcolonial intellectual community and discarding the legacy of the imperial academic system. An interesting artifact of the shifts in Korea’s intellectual community during this period is the interdisciplinary journal Hakpung (Academic Currents), published by Eulyoo Publishing. Hakpung captures the numerous changes that occurred within the academic community during these years, such as the contention between the Jindan Society’s positivism and Marxist scholars’ study of social economy, and the rise of the former to hegemonic dominance; the emergence of Americanism and alienation of socialism following the division of Korea and the Cold War; and the generational change in scholarship. Mainstream scholars shaped the academic discourse during the early years of nation building by reconstructing the knowledge they obtained through the imperial academic system as the tool and basis for establishing agency for the Korean nation, and by aligning themselves with the new dominant paradigm of American (Western) knowledge.