KJC Korea
Journal Central

Lee Gwang-Su and Yang Geon-Sik were the first to suggest the terminology of translated literature as a historical concept in Korea. Lee and Yang shared a modern notion of literature as introduced through Japan, and by grasping Chinese letters and Chinese literature as the other, they started to perceive the identity of the native language (national language) and native literature (national literature) in the context of literary history. Yang in particular perceived Chinese literature as foreign literature, and clearly showed a sense of identity in contributing to the establishment and development of modern native literature through translation. Yang Geon-Sik was the first professional translator of Chinese literature, and was the largest translating agent in the colonial period. He translated colloquial Chinese literature (báihuà wénxué) and the theory of literary revolution through double translations (second-hand translations) from Japanese, and changed the perception of Chinese literature into a modern one. Yang Geon-Sik was able to comprehend Chinese literature within the context of world literature by moving in and out of Western literature and Chinese literature, between classic and modern literature, and double translation (secondhand translation) and direct translation. By examining the beginnings of translated literature in Korea, the practicality of double translations (secondhand translations) and the historicity of world literature in East Asia can be re-evaluated.

This essay tries to reflect the ethics and politics of translation and then invites readers to rethink the process of world literature translation here in Korea. Briefly tracing the studies of Kim Byungchul who wrote the translation history of world literature in Korea from 1895 to the early 1980s, this essay invites readers to remap the arena of literary translation as the space of cultural acculturation. In the process, this essay questions the notions of cultural translation not as a all-purpose tool but as the practice of contacting otherness and difference of cultures. What does the phenomenon of translating world literature here in Korea imply especially in the process of constructing modern Korea and its national identity? What are the roles and ethics of literary translation? How can translators get over the cultural partiality that is deeply colligated in the field of translation? With the various questions embedded in publishing collected works of world literature, this essay problematizes the politics of translation and explores the possibility of rebuilding the cultural contact zone through literature translation where foreignness is cordially invited to the making of cultural identity. While the earlier translations of world literature focused on the acceptance of Western modernity, today’s translation of world literature might be meaningful as the active site of transforming our culture and identity.

The method of translation does not guarantee a plurality of possibilities. Both in East and West, the ways of translating are being discussed within the framework of dichotomy. The dichotomy between those who argue that you should translate the letter just as it is, and those who claim you should make the author’s message easy to read, has haunted every major moment of translation’s history, and it kept giving rise to controversies. Literary text is what makes most obvious the inability of these two aspects held as representative translation methods because a translation can only succeed through the process of translating the literary elements of a literary text, in other words, what turns a text into “literature.” Special configuration of sentences, a style that reflects the artist’s personality, and the use of specialized vocabulary, all these factors we often refer to as “literarity” (Jakobson) are the core upon which translators need to stay focused in their work of translating. What needs to be translated is the unique path the text draws, which corresponds to “the maximum value of subjectivity”(Meschonnic) in the text. The task of the translator is precisely the process of transforming this unique organization of the text into other languages, and to capture what occurs throughout this process. The uniqueness of literary translation is to make the reader feel he is reading a translated text through the translation of the author’s unique style. Literary translation is bound to cooperate with the process of criticism that assesses the particularities of the text. Literary criticism and literary translation work together inextricably.

Norms of translation include various rules and customs that translators must necessarily acquire. Translators must learn these norms if they wish their products to be recognized and circulated in a certain society. Such products contain the preferred value and knowledge system of a certain period, such as the structure of emotion, among other things. In this network of norms inhere political, cultural, and verbal ideologies. Norms don’t operate separately, but build a network, even while they connect with or contradict each other. When translators depend excessively on dominant norms, their translations have the effect of ultimately excluding exotic factors and strengthening their own culture and language-system. We have examined such an example in Wilamowitz-Moellendorff ’s translations of ancient Greek texts: He replaces the Greek mythologies and gods by the Christianity of his time and place, and in this way reveals the national or imperial ideology of his era. Even though most translators tend to follow the ruling norms, a few translators resist these norms. We have seen such resistance in Hölderlin’s translations of Sophocles, for Hölderlin mediates new images of the Greek gods, in contrast to the images presented by other writers of his time. This art of translation transforms the fixed images of foreign culture through resistance to the ruling norms.

After A Doll’s House, a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, was translated into Chinese, the heroine of the play, Nora, aroused great interest from the Chinese. There emerged a Nora craze in China during the early 20th-century. No other literary figure exerted greater influence on the Chinese than Nora. This paper aims to examine the relationship between the Nora craze and the deep cultural psychology of the Chinese from the perspective of cultural translation. First, Nora has certain traits of the female stage characters that were familiar to and loved by the Chinese. Female characters in traditional Chinese drama are usually portrayed as more strong-willed than males. Nora’s character traits are consistent with Chinese drama aesthetics. This is an important reason why she was so popular in China. Second, Nora embodies factors that were very strange and fresh to the Chinese. This is most clearly shown in her action of leaving home. Since familism was the official ideology of traditional Chinese society, even if female characters are allowed to speak out their sufferings on stage, the idea of their leaving home is not conceivable. Nora’s leaving home points a way out of the bonds of familism and brought great excitement to the Chinese, which explains why they developed such a craze for her. The analysis of the deep cultural psychology of the Nora craze helps us to understand what conditions and factors have made a certain foreign cultural factor succeed in a local cultural context.

With the development of science, Darwin’s The Origin of Species evoked the most dramatic controversies in religion, politics, society, and thought by exploding the existing concepts in the Victorian age. And the poet and novelist of the era, Thomas Hardy, who was among the earliest acclaimers of The Origin of Species accepted Darwinism in his literature. He made the convergence of literature and science, or literature and culture. Especially through these fusions in his poetry, he showed the possibilities of new poetry by overturning traditional ideas and old poetic techniques. He also showed the new roles of poetry that it could harmonize with scientific Darwinism. As the results of these, the concepts of variability, growth, and change as an organic form, the anti-anthropocentric view of the universe, pessimism, hap, and rich figurative words in his poetry interlocked smoothly with the same main theories of Darwinism. They played roles in wonder, which made the world of Hardy’s poetry unique and rich. It means that Hardy’s poetry shows the active acceptance of Darwinism and develops into modern poetry beyond the characteristics of traditional Victorian poetry. Hardy also tried to find the location of humans in the order of Nature and give evolutionary permanence to humans through the acceptance of Darwinism. Behind Hardy’s Darwinism, therefore, are hidden his passion on the deep understanding for humans and intelligence on objective introspection for humans. This is Hardy’s humanitarian acceptance of Darwinism, which enforces his creative power of poetry as a vehicle for insight and wonder.

Today we live in society of surveillance. Many CCTVs in society are a very familiar scene of contemporary cities. The reason why the theme of surveillance is interesting for us is that it is the best example showing us the ambivalent position of the video between art and technic. The purpose of this article is to make clear the relation of these two different practices of video: CCTV as a technical usage of the video and video art as an aesthetic appropriation of the video. First of all, we examine surveillance as a principal technology of modern power of politics. Studying the society of discipline of Foucault and the society of control of Deleuze, we pursue the development and change of the technology of surveillant power from panopticon to CCTV. What is then the strategy of a video art opposed to the incorporeal power of CCTV? Even though it uses the same technical mechanism of CCTV, video art suspends the flux of this mechanism for creating a space of critical thinking. In this context, we analyze the video works of Joan Jonas, Peter Campus, Dan Graham, and Bruce Nauman. Finally, with regard to the interpretation of their works, we point out the insufficiency of the model of active and participative spectator, and propose the model of suspension and thinking for arguing that the video art is a moment to make CCTV recover its consciousness of self.

This paper explores Roy Ascott (1934- ) and his conceptual world of “technoetic art,” including his artistic and aesthetic projects and concepts. I argue Ascott is one of the important harbingers of digital art aesthetics in the 1960s, even though he didn’t call his works digital art, because for Ascott the important features to develop in art and aesthetics are interactivity and co-creation. These principles place him immediately before a developing late 20th century and early 21st century more digitalbased artistry that holds to the same principles. He has written many articles and arranged many artistic projects for over three decades. I focus on explaining his most well-known article, “Is there Love in the Telematic Embrace?”, while exploring his concepts of technoetics, telematics, and consciousness. I think he provides many early insights and important intuitions into later digital art practice that have seldom been discussed by those analyzing digital art. Through this article, I concentrate on his view of how a new communicative environment can change art’s relation to topics like human dignity and the posthuman condition. In short, my main research topic is how well Ascott’s “technoetic” concepts connect to the existing literature and practice of digital art’s aesthetic experience.

This study examines the migrant experience of women of the Yongsan redlight district and its significance through life-history methodology and long-term participatory observation. First, migration is an event that transforms one’s whole life and stands between the expulsion from one’s regular life space and the challenge of a new life. The process of adapting to the mainstream space in which one’s past or history can be denounced, includes not only financial problems but those of identity and cultural conflict, among others, and is supported by the intimacy, communication, a sense of belonging, and social approval in the relationships with neighbors, colleagues, and other people. These women’s community brings forward the need for an alternative in-between space, suggesting that a genuine empowerment and de-embodiment of boundaries is possible not through an one-way adaptation or support but through the realization of mutual exchange.