KJC Korea
Journal Central

This paper attempts to find a way for the practitioners of humanities and natural sciences to communicate to each other. Mutual interests in or knowledge of what is going on in the other disciplines are necessary but not sufficient. But if there should be a common language by which they could talk to each other, it would provide a basis by which they could have access to each other. The present paper tries to find that basis by showing (1) that imagination in the humanities is a basic power to broaden human freedom, whereas imagination in the natural sciences is a basic power to investigate natural reality; (2) that imagination in the humanities is qualitative, whereas imagination in the natural sciences is quantitative; and (3) that qualities are determined in terms of categories and numbers, eg., whether Bush is “fast” or Obama is “slow” is determined in terms of Daniel Kahneman’s category proposal and numbers of people who respond positively to the category proposal, whereas quantities are counted in a system of classifications, eg., the question how many are there in this room can neither be counted nor answered without a system where objects are classified in terms of qualities in the order of my personal or our communal interest.

This article attempts to understand the characteristics of the management of historical records and documents in the Joseon Period, compared with that of the Edo Period in Japan. Sillok(實錄), Seungjeongwon-ilki(承政院日記), Bibyonsa-deungnok(備邊司謄錄), and various Eugwe(儀軌) show the essence of the historical record and the document culture of the Joseon Period. We can suggest Dokugawa-zikki(德川實紀), Yuhitssho-ikki(右筆所日記), Soshabanikki( 奏者番日記), and Soshaban-tedome(奏者番手留) as the records and documents of the Edo Period corresponding with those of the Joseon Period. There are some similarities between Joseon’s system of record and document management and that of the Edo Period, from the point of view that every office had its own system of recording and documenting. However, there was a difference in the system to make Sillok the highest level of records and documents by reporting and abridging from the records and documents that had been produced by every office, the original records and documents being discarded as hyuji (or disused papers for recycling) in the Joseon Period. In the Edo Period, by contrast, no record or document was ever discarded, except for special cases, but was preserved permanently, in other words, a permanent preservation system of records and documents. This point is the most important difference between two countries in their management of historical records and documents.

Natume Soseki’s travel essay Here and There in Manchuria and Korea is a work of literature based on his personal experiences in Manchuria and Korea, but it vividly and realistically describes life in Japanese society and characteristics of Manchuria in 1909. Therefore, we would like to analyze this book not as literature but as a historical document. First, we examined the education system of elites and their life paths after college graduation based on Soseki’s personal experience, including the Imperial University graduates whom he met at that time. We found that his trip was supported by colleagues and alumni of Imperial University. Second, we researched livelihoods under Japanese colonialism in Manchuria. Soseki’s book did not present its information on Manchuria chronologically, but it still helped the Japanese introduce a developmental process to Manchuria.

In the history of Chinese women, the Ming Dynasty is a very important era. It was not until then that Chinese people changed their view to support education for women, and the number of educated women increased. In fact, there were a few outstanding individual female writers before the Ming Dynasty; however, in the Ming Dynasty, female writers corresponded with each other and created their own literary works through group activities. This was the reason why female social activities took place actively during the Ming Dynasty. However, the number of those women was still small, and the Ming Dynasty was an era when most women were repressed. Under such circumstances, Xu De Ying was a woman whose writing was distinctive from that of other female writers. She criticized male politics through her criticism of the past, and raised her voice to the world with no hesitation. She pushed beyond the limitations of the women’s quarters, and we can discover her views on trans-boundaries throughout her works.

Women in China have traditionally been considered to have suffered in silence under an ethic that was suffocating to them. However, a lot of literary works written by women were published in collections as printing technology developed in the Ming Dynasty and women writers as a group, not just as individuals, appeared. This phenomenon can give rise to a new trend in the history of Chinese literary studies, which has previously centered upon male writers, but the study of female Chinese writers is still few. This study therefore examines women’s literary activities and their literary philosophy through what the women writers directly wrote. First of all, I attempt to arrange prefaces and letters written by women in the collection of literary works Women’s Works in Recent History (歷代婦女著作考) and Collection of Letters Written by Women in History (歷代名媛文苑簡編), written by Ho Moon-gye, and The McGill-Harvard-Yenching Library’s Ming-Qing Women’s Writings (明 淸婦女著作) and examine the characteristics of female literary style in them, dividing these into three large parts. The first is female education and female writing. Comparatively many books were published due to the development of the printing industry in the Ming Dynasty, and the opportunity for education was expanded to women connected to education. Women read various books and wrote their works based on the knowledge gleaned. Second, I treatliterary exchange and literary recognition through private groups. Women in the Ming Dynasty exchanged literature with each other and raised their literary knowledge through their favorite groups, wrote about their daily lives in their works, and continued to form bonds of empathy while reading theirworks together. Third, I note the individual and insignificant writing. Women in the Ming Dynasty were very enthusiastic for literary writing that expressed their own experiences and emotions. Women could encounter their own inner life through individual works describing their busy daily life and exchange their emotions with other women. In this way, female literary activities acted as a means of spreading the thoughts and desires of the heart and women’s views on literature, which are revealed directly and candidly in their prefaces and letters.

A trans-boundary between creation and criticism: Such an unprecedented consilience is found only in the field of film. This article traces the epic chronicle of convergence between these two different worlds. This genealogy of crossing borders started with the origin of textuality research, “All films can be read,” the main view by early film semiologists. Also, French film critic/director Alexandre Astruc’s notion of “La Caméra-Stylo” (camera-pen) was used as an important catalyst in improving trans-boundary movements. Especially the unique aesthetics of “écriture” (writing) and “grammatographe” by Roland Barthes can be appropriated for the core concept of boundary-crossing because these metaphors traverse a lot of borders, e.g., texts and images. More specifically, Barthes emphasized in Le degré zéro de l’écriture (Writing Degree Zero) that zero-degree writing can trigger far-reaching, transparent border-crossing, and this is the task of the grammatographer, a scholar who performatively writes the writing of a picture. After that, the term écriture was extended to the compound word “cinécriture” (cine-writing) by Agnès Varda. At the same time, Nouveau Roman writers worked in cooperation with directors, including Marguerite Duras and Alain Resnais, such that the distance between film and text narrowed. In addition, film journals ― Cahiers du Cinéma, Positif, and Filmkritik ― were actually a functioning open space tearing down the boundaries between creation and criticism. Meanwhile, a group of essay filmmakers of the time enriched the conceptual layers of the so-called “Filmkritik-Style” film, using commentaries. Ultimately, these great strandswere dramatically intertwined through German critic/director Harun Farocki. He belongs to the counterculture 68 generation of artists who pursued social revolution through the creation of a more subversive and political avant-garde cinema and the criticism it produced. During and after this period of upheaval, he consistently presented the practices of self-criticism and self-reflexivity in his works to explore trans-bordering degree zero. As an extraordinary role-model for cross-boundary work, he also transcended the boundaries between film and contemporary art and between activism and pure art, as well as between textual critic and visual critic.

The article is organized as follows. The first clarifies research questions, the purpose of study and methodology about the food cultural comparison between the Tamra & the Mongolia. The second deals with methods of study, literature review, previous research and theoretical background of the food culture comparison. The comparative variables of a characteristic of food culture are international regional ecology, climate, so forth. This paper analysed effects among food material, recipe and food manners. The third presents comparative analysis about food culture of the Tamra & the Mongolia. The forth suggests interchange direction for fostering food culture comparison between the Tamra & the Mongolia. The last concluded the study. The findings give us suggestions that it is useful to exchange the food culture because each countries have its own unique culinary tradition culture, so forth.